Tracking the fate of dung-derived carbohydrates in a temperate grassland soil using compound-specific stable isotope analysis

Carbohydrates are major organic components of dung and are likely to contribute substantially to increased carbon stocks in manured soils. To investigate this hypothesis, a field-scale experiment was conducted on a temperate grassland site in Devon, UK. C4 dung (bulk δ13C value −12.6‰) was applied to a temperate grassland C3 soil (bulk δ13C value −30.3‰) in April and the surface soil beneath cow pats sampled at seven dates over a year. Total carbohydrates were extracted as their monosaccharide components and analysed as the alditol acetates using gas chromatography. The δ13C values of the major monosaccharides glucose (−11.5 ±0.6‰), xylose (−10.4 ±0.4‰), arabinose (−10.4 ±0.5‰) and galactose (−8.3 ±1.6‰) extracted from the C4 dung via acid hydrolysis were indicative of their source. Their weighted mean δ13C value was −10.8‰, 1.8‰ more 13C-enriched than the bulk dung value. The δ13C values of individual monosaccharides recovered by acid hydrolysis in the 0–1 cm and 1–5 cm soil horizons beneath C4 cow pats, compared with control soils determined over 372 days, allowed assessment of the extent of incorporation and fluxes of dung-derived monosaccharides. A maximum of 60% of the dung C in soil was derived from carbohydrates after 56 days, declining to around 20% after 372 days. Incorporation dynamics varied between monosaccharide species. Glucose, xylose and arabinose behaved in a similar manner because of their predominantly plant cell wall derived provenance in the dung, whilst dung-derived galactose and mannose appeared to have a microbial source in the soil. The dynamics of total dung-derived monosaccharides in the top 5 cm was comparable to incorporation and flux of bulk dung C, previously estimated using bulk δ13C values. The movement of dung-derived carbohydrates into the soil was inequivalent between the 0–1 cm and 1–5 cm horizons. The lack of a significant difference in concentration, but the evidence for the persistence of dung-derived monosaccharides in soil based on δ13C values, indicated replacement of existing pools in the soil, suggesting that the ability of this particular soil to sequester further C derived from carbohydrates was limited.