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Quantity and biodegradability of dissolved organic matter released from sequentially leached soils, as influenced by the extent of soil drying prior to rewetting

Soil rewetting can induce a flush of organic matter mineralisation, but the factors underpinning this mineralisation response are poorly understood. We investigated the effects of antecedent soil water content, before rewetting, on the quantity, quality and biodegradability of dissolved organic matter present in the leachate pore volumes from a soil under two different management histories: arable and grassland. Soils were collected at field capacity (FC) and dried to give four soil gravimetric water contents (θg): 22% (not dried, left at FC), 15%, 8% and <2% (air dry, AD). Soils were repacked to the same bulk density (1.1 g cm–3) and each core was sequentially leached, with four pore volumes collected. The total amount of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) leached increased (P < 0.001) only in the soils that had been air-dried before rewetting (3.8 and 5.3 mg g–1 soil C, for arable and grassland respectively), while among the other θg treatments differences were relatively small (1.6–2.4 mg g–1 soil C). The pre-rewetting θg treatment affected the DOC content of the pore volume leached (P < 0.001): in the grassland soil, the DOC of the AD treatment was consistently twice as high as the other θg treatments, but this trend was not as consistent in the arable soil. For all θg treatments and both soils, specific ultraviolet absorbance at 254 nm increased as leaching progressed. Biodegradability, expressed as cumulative CO2 produced per unit of DOC in leachates, was significantly lower in the first pore volume of all treatments in the grassland soil and increased with sequential leaching. In the arable soil, differences were small or insignificant across the pore volumes leached, but were large and inconsistent across the θg treatments. These findings improve our understanding of how antecedent soil water content affects the quantity and quality of dissolved organic matter released when soils are rewetted, and the potential for soil carbon losses.