Phytolith transport in soil: a laboratory study on intact soil cores

Column experiments on phytolith transport were conducted to assess the partial contributions of water percolation and earthworm activity to phytolith transport in loamy and sandy soils. Six intact cores of a loamy sandy Haplic Cambisol and nine cores of a silty loamy Stagnic Luvisol were excavated. With the Luvisol, three treatments were perfomed: a percolation treatment with periodic irrigation, but without earthworms, a percolation and earthworm treatment with periodic irrigation and earthworms (Aporrectodea caliginosa) and a control. The Cambisol cores did not contain earthworms and hence only percolation and control treatments were tested. The phytoliths of common reed (Phragmites australis) were labelled with the fluorescent dye fluorescein isothiocyanate and applied to the soil surface of each core. Except for the control treatment, 3600 mm of water was applied over 6 months. In the Cambisol, the weighted mean transport distance of phytoliths was significantly greater with percolation (2.2 ± 0.1 cm) than in the control (0.9 ± 0.3 cm), indicating that water percolation is a driving mechanism of phytolith transport. In the Luvisol, the difference in mean transport depth between control and percolation treatments (1.0 ± 0.2 and 1.5 ± 0.3 cm) was not significant. The earthworms did not affect the mean transport distance of phytoliths in the Luvisol, but the phytolith concentrations in the leachates were significantly greater and their size distribution did not change with soil depth as observed in the percolation treatment without earthworms. Further studies are required to quantify the effect of earthworms on phytolith transport.