RESEARCH ARTICLE
Roles of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics in Soil Macroaggregate Formation and Stabilization
Kristine A. Nichols*, Jonathan J. Halvorson
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2013Volume: 7
First Page: 107
Last Page: 117
Publisher ID: TOASJ-7-107
DOI: 10.2174/1874331520131011003
Article History:
Received Date: 01/06/2013Revision Received Date: 15/08/2013
Acceptance Date: 16/08/2013
Electronic publication date: 29/11/2013
Collection year: 2013
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0), a copy of which is available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Abstract
Many soil functions depend on the distribution of macro- (≥ 0.25 mm) and micro- (< 0.25 mm) aggregates and open space between aggregates (i.e. soil structure). Despite the importance of macroaggregates in soil, little is understood about how they form and become stable. We hypothesize that biological activities, chemical reactions, and physical forces which help to form macroaggregates differ from those involved in stabilization. Formation is a binding process where aggregate components are brought spatially closer together, ‘bagged’ or enmeshed by roots and fungal hyphae and ‘glued’ by labile SOM. Stabilization involves bonding processes between organic matter, clay minerals, cations, or plant or microbial biomolecules which increase internal cohesiveness. By separating aggregate formation from stabilization, the biological, chemical, and physical processes involved in maintaining long-term soil quality through stabilized soil structure will be more easily identified.