Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Centro de Ensino Superior do Seridó (CERES), Departamento de Geografia, Rua Joaquim Gregório, s/n, Penedo, 59300-000 Caicó, RN, Brazil.
Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Departamento de Geografia, Av. Antônio Carlos, 6627, Pampulha, 31270-901 Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil.
An Acad Bras Cienc. 2022 Feb 11;94(suppl 1):e20210595. doi: 10.1590/0001-3765202220210595. eCollection 2022.
The majority of ornithogenic soils studied in Antarctica focus on the influence of penguins, wherever little reports evaluated the influence of flying birds on soil genesis. This study aimed to characterize the morphologic, chemic, physic, mineralogic, and micromorphologic ornithogenic soil pockets influenced by flying birds in Snow Island, Maritime Antarctica. Fifteen soil pockets were selected, described, sampled and analyzed, these sites constitute the main areas with intense long-term terrestrial biological activity in Snow Island. In order to investigate the impact of phosphatization, we compared the soil pockets with the surrounding soils and soils affected by penguins. Zone of phosphatization have a high concentration of P, K, and Ca. The XRD patterns for the clay fraction of ornithogenic soils show that phosphate minerals are the main crystalline phases (leucophosphite, minyulite, fluorapatite, and apatite). We show that even under typical periglacial conditions, sites influenced by flying birds present active chemical weathering processes. The phosphatization release exchangeable bases and accelerate mineralogical and micromorphological transformations in soils. Under the current global warming trend and expected sea-level rise, the ornithogenic environments are susceptible to accelerated erosion rates and a great part of these hotspots may be lost for the open sea.
大多数在南极洲研究的鸟粪土都集中在企鹅的影响上，而很少有研究评估飞鸟对土壤发生的影响。本研究旨在描述受飞鸟影响的雪岛（南极洲海上）形态、化学、物理、矿物学和微形态鸟粪土袋。选择了 15 个土壤袋进行描述、采样和分析，这些地点构成了雪岛上具有强烈长期陆地生物活动的主要区域。为了研究磷灰石化的影响，我们将土壤袋与周围土壤和受企鹅影响的土壤进行了比较。磷灰石化区具有高浓度的 P、K 和 Ca。鸟粪土粘粒部分的 XRD 图谱表明，磷酸盐矿物是主要的结晶相（白磷铁矿、水磷钙矿、氟磷灰石和磷灰石）。我们表明，即使在典型的冻融条件下，受飞鸟影响的地点也存在活跃的化学风化过程。磷灰石化释放可交换的基础，并加速土壤中的矿物和微形态转变。在当前的全球变暖趋势和预期的海平面上升下，鸟类环境容易受到加速侵蚀率的影响，这些热点中的很大一部分可能会因开阔海域而丧失。
