Variations of 7Be concentration in plants and its significance for 7Be in soil on the Loess Plateau, China: Based on three-year monitoring data
- 1State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi Province, 712100, PR China (xuantian_li@126.com; fbzhang@nwsuaf.edu.cn; yxhe@nwafu.edu.cn;
- 2Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, CAS and MWR, Yangling, Shaanxi Province 712100, PR China (fbzhang@nwsuaf.edu.cn; myyang@nwsuaf.edu.cn)
- 3Department of Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University, Kowloon Tong, Hong Kong, PR China (cdelang@gmail.com)
Aims With the wide application of 7Be (Beryllium-7) in soil erosion investigations, absorption and interception of 7Be by vegetation play an important role in documenting soil 7Be redistribution, with a large impact on the precision of 7Be measurements. However, the dynamic changes in plants and the relationship with soil 7Be concentration remain unclear, and the significance of dead plants in 7Be interception is under-researched.
Methods The samples of 6 plant species, multi-plants (including living, dead and both mixed) and soil reference on the Loess Plateau were collected to analyze the variations of 7Be content during the growth period from 2010 to 2012.
Results The accumulation of 7Be concentration is significantly higher in leaves than stems. The 7Be mass and areal activity concentrations in multi-plants with seasonal trends ranged from 173.9 to 964.5 Bq kg–1 and 21.5 to 440.1 Bq m–2. Precipitation accounted for the largest contribution to the accumulation of 7Be in plants, followed by plant growth, species and parts. Plants accounted for 7Be interception on slope up to 66% (living plants accounted for 7%~31% and dead accounted for 6%~44%). The interception of living plants is low at first, then increases with biomass accumulated.
Conclusions Our results highlight that 7Be concentration in plants has great implications for 7Be in soil, and is subject to precipitation, growth status and plant characteristics. The reference information obtained in this work will contribute to improving the accuracy of 7Be tracer technology, and broadening the application scope and scale of 7Be tracer technology.
Keywords Beryllium-7 · Loess Plateau · Precipitation · Plant · Activity concentration
How to cite: Li, X., Zhang, F., He, Y., Delang, C. O., and Yang, M.: Variations of 7Be concentration in plants and its significance for 7Be in soil on the Loess Plateau, China: Based on three-year monitoring data, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-2708, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-2708, 2022.
