New soils formed after glacier retreat can provide insights into the rates of soil formation in the context of accelerated warming due to climate change. Recently deglacierized terrains (since the Little Ice Age) are subject to weathering and pedogenesis, and freshly exposed sediments are prone to react readily with the environment. This study aims to determine the impact of parent material and time on soil physical and chemical properties of nine proglacial landscapes distributed in the Tropical Andes and Alps. A total of 188 soil samples were collected along chronosequences of deglacierization and from sites that differed in terms of parent material and classified following three parent material groups: (1) Granodiorite-Tonalite (GT), (2) Gneiss-Shales-Schists (GSS), and (3) Mont-Blanc Granite (MBG). We determined physical and chemical soil properties such as contents of clay, silt, sand, organic carbon, bulk density (BD), pH, extractable cation (exCa, exMg, exK), elemental composition by Xray fluorescence (Al, Si, P, S, K, Ca, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, As, Mo, Hg, Pb) and ICP-MS (Al, Ca, Cu, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Mo, Na, P, S, Zn), and mineral phase (XRD diffraction analysis). Parent material-controlled particle-size distribution, SOC, pH, available P, exCa, and exMg, whereas time since deglacierization only affected SOC and P, and exMg globally. Most of the significant differences in soil properties between parent material groups occurred within the first 17 years after deglacierization, and then we observed a homogenization between sites. While the higher SOC and P contents observed within the GT Andean sites might be due to the parent material composition leading to faster initial soil formation, we identified potential As, Cu, Mo, and Mn toxicity within those soils. Our study highlights the need to investigate further proglacial soil's buffering capacity and carbon sequestration to globally inform the conservation and management of novel proglacial ecosystems.

Understanding the influence of soil-forming factors and processes in ornithogenic soils is important to predict impacts of climate change on Antarctic ecosystems. Herein, we analyzed the soil-landscape interplays and development of ornithogenic soils at Harmony Point (HP), Nelson Island. We collected, described, and classified 24 soil profiles, combined with vegetation and landforms descriptions. Geoprocessing techniques were employed for mapping. Soil physical, chemical, geochemical, and mineralogical analyses were applied. Patterned ground, Ornithogenic/ Typic Gelorthent, and moss carpets were the dominant landform, soil and vegetation classes, respectively. Soils from rocky outcrops were more structured, acidic, with higher organic carbon, organometallic complexes, and secondary phosphate minerals, due to former bird influence. Soils from cryoplanated platforms presented higher water pH, base saturation, clay content, and secondary silicate minerals. Soils from marine terraces presented high exchangeable bases, phosphorous, and amorphous phosphate minerals. Soil chemical weathering is enhanced by ornithogenesis and widespread in HP. Besides ornithogenesis, organic matter accumulation, cryoturbation, and cryoclastic processes are also important to pedogenesis of ornithogenic soils. The soils of the cryoplanated platforms exhibited a gradient of pedogenetic development corresponding to increasing biota influence and distance from glacier. In contrast, soils of rocky outcrops were more developed even close to the glacier, due to ornithogenesis.

The variability of soil carbon and nitrogen and the lack of information regarding the properties of deep soils in alpine permafrost regions hinder our understanding of ecosystem responses to climate change. The objective of this study was to examine the effects of pedogenesis and soil physicochemical parameters on the distributions of soil carbon and nitrogen and their characteristics of alpine meadows in permafrost regions. The results showed that pedogenesis was an important factor in the distribution of soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) in both the active layers and deep soils. The average water-soluble organic carbon (WSOC) content in the permafrost layer was higher than that of the active layer, which implied that the carbon pool in the permafrost layer was easily decomposable. Soil pH was an important factor that influenced soil inorganic carbon (SIC), which was closely associated with SOC in deep soils. The significant negative relationships between the SIC, pH and C/N ratios in permafrost regions implied that SIC can play an important role in the turnover of SOM and TN. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We investigated the main parameters [e.g. mean annual air temperature , mean annual soil temperature, mean annual precipitation, soil moisture (SM), soil chemistry, and physics] influencing soil organic carbon (C-org), soil total nitrogen (N-t) as well as plant available nitrogen (N-min) at 47 sites along a 1200 km transect across the high-altitude and low-latitude permafrost region of the central-eastern Tibetan Plateau. This large-scale survey allows testing the hypothesis that beside commonly used ecological variables, diversity of pedogenesis is another major component for assessing carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycling. The aim of the presented research was to evaluate consequences of permafrost degradation for C and N stocks and hence nutrient supply for plants, as the transect covers all types of permafrost including heavily degraded areas and regions without permafrost. Our results show that SM is the dominant parameter explaining 64% of C-org and 60% of N variation. The extent of the effect of SM is determined by permafrost, current aeolian sedimentation occurring mostly on degraded sites, and pedogenesis. Thus, the explanatory power for C and N concentrations is significantly improved by adding CaCO3 content (P=0.012 for C-org; P=0.006 for N-t) and soil texture (P=0.077 for C-org; P=0.015 for N-t) to the model. For soil temperature, no correlations were detected indicating that in high-altitude grassland ecosystems influenced by permafrost, SM overrides soil temperature as the main driving parameter at landscape scale. It was concluded from the current study that degradation of permafrost and corresponding changes in soil hydrology combined with a shift from mature stages of pedogenesis to initial stages, have severe impact on soil C and plant available N. This may alter biodiversity patterns as well as the development and functioning of the ecosystems on the Tibetan Plateau.