Organic Matter Structural Composition of Vascular Epiphytic Suspended Soils of South Vietnam

Abstract

The biosphere organic matter is stored in nature in various forms. Most of it is associated with classical terrestrial organo-mineral soils. The carbon of woody plant biomass is counted separately from soil as carbon of the standing biomass. Nevertheless, humification as a universal process already begins in plant residues before they reach the surface of the classical tropical mineral soil. Moreover, in tropical humid-forest ecosystems, most of the organic matter does not reach the soil surface at all and accumulates in the state of suspended soils. The data obtained in this study characterize, for the first time, the component and structural composition of the organic matter of plant residues of suspended soils, as well as the products of their transformation—humic substances formed in suspended soils. With the use of micro morphological methods, it was shown that humification appears in merged areas of organic remnants. There were statistically significant differences in the elemental composition of humic acids and initial organic material for all elements—C, H, O and N. It has been shown that the aliphatic part dominates (75–93%) in the initial organic materials of suspended soils, whereas the humic substances are characterized by a relatively increased fraction of aromatic fragments (31–42%) in the composition of their molecules, which confirms that humification takes place. Thus, even in the suspended soils, classical humification occurs, and this is not limited by the low content of mineral particles and cations in the suspended soils and the rather acidic reaction of the material. Therefore, the existence of tiering and the formation of the corresponding layers of suspended soils is accompanied by the stabilization and humification of organic matter, which is accompanied by a radical change in its structural and component composition. This process is the “natural biotechnology” of organic matter conservation and stabilization is discussed in article.

Actualización de la flora epífita del Perú

“…Las epífitas vasculares representan aproximadamente el 10% de la diversidad de plantas vasculares en el planeta (Benzing 2008, Ibisch et al 1996, Kress 1986, Madison 1977, Zotz et al 2021a), y contribuyen considerablemente a los centros globales de diversidad de plantas (Taylor et al 2022). Aunado a esto, este tipo de plantas juegan un papel preponderante en el funcionamiento de los ecosistemas dado que: a) por su posición en el dosel, así como por la forma de adquisición de agua y nutrimentos que presentan, intervienen directamente en los ciclos hídricos y de nutrientes de los ecosistemas (Abakumov & Eskov 2023, Chen et al 2019Hargis et al 2019, Mendieta-Leiva et al 2020); b) dan complejidad al ecosistema permitiendo el incremento de la biodiversidad, jugando el rol de especies fundadoras secundarias que facilitan recursos de agua, alimento y refugio a numerosos organismos como bacterias, protozoarios, insectos, reptiles, aves, mamíferos, algas, y otras epífitas (Angelini & Silliman 2014, Zotz 2016Freire et al 2021, Ortega-Solis et al 2021); y c) en algunos ecosistemas llegan a representar más de un tercio de las especies y la mitad de los individuos de plantas presentes en dichos ecosistemas (Gentry & Dodson 1987a;Linares-Palomino et al 2009). Adicionalmente numerosas especies de epífitas son utilizadas por el hombre con fines ornamentales (Ticktin et al 2020).…”