Decomposition and the contribution of glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP) in heavy metal sequestration: Field experiment

Glomalin is a metal-sorbing glycoprotein excreted by arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF). One method of estimating glomalin in soils is as glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP). In this study the role of GRSP in sequestering Pb and Cd was investigated in an in situ field experiment. The effect of metal sequestration on the subsequent decomposition of GRSP was also investigated. GRSP was determined using the Bradford method as total glomalin-related soil protein (T-GRSP) and as easily extractable glomalin-related soil protein (EE-GRSP). After 140 days, GRSP bound Pb accounted for 0.21-1.78% of the total Pb, and GRSP bound Cd accounted for 0.38-0.98% of the total Cd content in the soil. However when compared on a soil organic matter (SOM) basis, only 4% of the Pb or Cd was bound to the GRSP fraction of the SOM compared with 40-54% of the Pb or Cd bound to the humin and fulvic acids in the SOM fraction. In soils contaminated with the highest levels of Pb and Cd, the T-GRSP (EE-GRSP) decomposition after 140 days was reduced by 8.0 (6.6)% and 7.0 (7.5)%, respectively, when compared with the controls. In the high Pb or Cd treatment groups we found that the fraction of metal bound to GRSP increased even though the total GRSP content declined over time. The mass ratio between Pb and GRSP-carbon changed from 2.3 to 271.4 mg (100 g)−1 in all Pb levels soil, while with the high-Cd treatment group the mass ratio between Cd and GRSP-carbon (0.36 mg (100 g)−1) was higher than the mass ratio seen with Cd-bound humic acid fractions. Our in situ field study shows that while GRSP does bind Pb and Cd, in the soils we investigated, the levels are insignificant compared to soil organic matter such as humic and fulvic acids.