Changes in the Amino Acid Composition of Decomposing Plant Materials in Soil: Species and Depth Effects

Abstract

This project studied the amino acid composition of samples taken from an experiment of in situ incubation of plant debris, mixed with mineral earth, to identify changes during decomposition. Medicago sativa debris, and Eucalyptus globulus and Pinus halepensis ground litter, were mixed with a OM‐poor mineral earth, and buried in the soil at 5, 20, and 40 cm depth, for 2 years. The total amino acid composition of the final samples was compared with that of the initial ones. The amino acid composition of the several initial mixtures was quite similar. Also, the differences between initial and incubated samples were small, but still large enough to detect consistent changes. The pattern of change was consistent for only nine amino acids: Gly consistently increased, whereas Lys, His, Leu, and (to a lesser extent) Arg, Tyr, Phe, Ser, and Tau consistently decreased. The ratio Gly/(Lys+His+Leu+Arg+Tyr+Phe+Ser) is taken as the amino acid signature (AaS). This ratio increased from about 0.30–0.35 in the undecomposed mixtures, to about 0.55–0.60 after 2 years of field decomposition, and the comparison with data from other authors suggests that it could be a useful indicator of the degree of biochemical evolution of nitrogen compounds in soil samples. In contrast, changes in the traditional groups of amino acids, i.e., acid, basic, neutral, and sulfur (S)‐containing, were hardly detectable.

Keywords:

• Amino acids
• decomposition
• mediterranean
• signature

Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the PICS Program (International Cooperation CNRS & Generalitat de Catalunya); contract n° PIC 004. Tables 1 to 3 are reprinted from Rovira, P. and Vallejo, V.R. Geoderma 107: 109–141, Copyright (2002), with permission of Elsevier.