Responses of dissolved organic carbon to freeze–thaw cycles associated with the changes in microbial activity and soil structure

Abstract

Arctic warming accelerates snowmelt, exposing soil surfaces with shallow or no snow cover to freeze–thaw cycles (FTCs) more frequently in early spring and late autumn. FTCs influence Arctic soil C dynamics by increasing or decreasing the amount of dissolved organic carbon (DOC); however, mechanism-based explanations of DOC changes that consider other soil biogeochemical properties are limited. To understand the effects of FTCs on Arctic soil responses, we designed microcosms with surface organic soils from Alaska and investigated several soil biogeochemical changes for seven successive temperature fluctuations of freezing at −9.0 ± 0.3 ∘C and thawing at 6.2 ± 0.3 ∘C for 12 h each. FTCs significantly changed the following soil variables: soil CO2 production (CO2), DOC and total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) contents, two DOC quality indices (SUVA254 and A365 / A254), microaggregate (53–250 µm) distribution, and small-sized mesopore (0.2–10 µm) proportion. Multivariate statistical analyses indicated that the FTCs improved soil structure at the scale of microaggregates and small-sized mesopores, facilitating DOC decomposition by soil microbes and changes in DOC quantity and quality by FTCs. This study showed that FTCs increased soil CO2 production, indicating that FTCs affected DOC characteristics without negatively impacting microbial activity. Soil microaggregation enhanced by FTCs and the subsequent increase in microbial activity and small-sized pore proportion could promote DOC decomposition, decreasing the DOC quantity. This study provides a mechanism-based interpretation of how FTCs alter DOC characteristics of the organic soil in the active layer by incorporating structural changes and microbial responses, improving our understanding of Arctic soil C dynamics.