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Soils and the Soil Cover of Mountainous Tundra Landscapes on Calcareous Rocks in the Polar Urals: Diversity, Taxonomy, and Nitrogen and Carbon Patterns

  • GENESIS AND GEOGRAPHY OF SOILS
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Abstract

Landscapes of the northern part of the Bolshoi Paipudynskii Ridge (the Polar Urals) served as a key site to study the taxonomic diversity of soils on calcareous rocks as related to both bioclimatic and geogenic (relief, thickness of eluvial and colluvial derivatives of calcareous rocks) factors. Soils of the postlithogenic trunk of the new Russian soil classification system are developed under different plant communities. They are classified within several soil orders: cryometamorphic soils (Mollic Calcaric Stagnosols), lithozems (Folic Mollic Calcaric Leptosols), organo-accumulative soils (Molic Leptic Calcaric Stagnosols), and gley soils (Folic Calcaric Gleysols). These soils compose either small individual areas, or occur in soil associations. The mass of carbon and nitrogen in the aboveground phytomass ranges within 40–49 and 0.9–2.3%, respectively. The storage of aboveground phytomass (fresh weight) varies from 20 to 1600 g/m2. In each soil profile, the surface horizons have a maximum content of organic carbon and nitrogen (up to 40 and 2.5%, respectively). The Corg and Norg patterns in soils depend on the productivity of plant communities, the composition of falloff, and the conditions for its decomposition. In all soil profiles, the inorganic carbon content (Cinorg) increases down the soil profile reaching 12%. The mineral nitrogen content does not exceed 1%. The contents of N-\({\text{NH}}_{4}^{ + }\) and N-\({\text{NO}}_{3}^{ - }\) have their maximums reaching 140 and 30 mg/kg, respectively, in the surface soil horizons.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors are deeply grateful to N.B. Khitrov, S.V. Goryachkin, D.A. Kaverin, and T.A. Sizonenko for valuable advice, critical remarks, and consultations in the preparation of the manuscript.

Funding

This study was performed within the framework of budgetary theme “General Regularities of the Formation and Functioning of Peat Soils in the Arctic and Subarctic sectors of the European Northeast of Russia” (state registration number: АААА-А17-117122290011-5) and partly supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, project no, 20-04-00445а “Factors and Mechanisms of Stabilization of Organic Matter in Soils of Extreme Conditions (by the Example of Arctic Ecosystems).”

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  1. Institute of Biology, Komi Science Center, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Kommunisticheskaya ul. 28, 167982, Syktyvkar, Russia

    E. V. Shamrikova, E. V. Zhangurov, E. E. Kulyugina, M. A. Korolev, O. S. Kubik & E. A. Tumanova

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  1. E. V. Shamrikova
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Correspondence to E. V. Shamrikova.

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Shamrikova, E.V., Zhangurov, E.V., Kulyugina, E.E. et al. Soils and the Soil Cover of Mountainous Tundra Landscapes on Calcareous Rocks in the Polar Urals: Diversity, Taxonomy, and Nitrogen and Carbon Patterns. Eurasian Soil Sc. 53, 1206–1221 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1134/S106422932009015X

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