Uptake and recycling of lead by boreal forest plants: Quantitative estimates from a site in northern Sweden

• Published in: Geochimica et cosmochimica acta Vol. 69; no. 10; pp. 2485 - 2496
• Main Authors: Klaminder, Jonatan, Bindler, Richard, Emteryd, Ove, Renberg, Ingemar
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01-05-2005
• Subjects: Pinus sylvestris; Sweden
• ISSN: 0016-7037; 1872-9533
• DOI: 10.1016/j.gca.2004.11.013

As a consequence of deposition of atmospheric pollution, the lead concentration in the mor layer (the organic horizon) of remote boreal forest soils in Sweden is raised far above natural levels. How the mor will respond to decreased atmospheric pollution is not well known and is dependent on future deposition rates, downward migration losses and upward fluxes in the soil profile. Plants may contribute to the upward flux of lead by ‘pumping’ lead back to the mor surface through root uptake and subsequent litter fall. We use lead concentration and stable isotope (
206Pb,
207Pb and
208Pb) measurements of forest vegetation to quantify plant uptake rates from the soil and direct from the atmosphere at two sites in northern Sweden; an undisturbed mature forest and a disturbed site with Scots pine (
Pinus sylvestris) growing on a recently exposed mineral soil (C-horizon) containing a minimum of atmospherically derived pollution lead. Analyses of forest mosses from a herbarium collection (spanning the last ∼100 yr) and soil matrix samples suggest that the atmospheric lead deposited on plants and soil has an average
206Pb/
207Pb ratio of 1.15, while lead derived from local soil minerals has an average ratio of ∼1.47. Since the biomass of trees and field layer shrubs has an average
206Pb/
207Pb ratio of ∼1.25, this indicates that 70% ± 10% of the inventory of 1 ± 0.8 mg Pb m
−2 stored in plants in the mature forest originates from pollution. Needles, bark and apical stemwood of the pine growing on the disturbed soil, show lower
206Pb/
207Pb ratios (as low as 1.21) than the roots and basal stemwood (having ratios > 1.36), which indicate that plants are able to incorporate lead directly from the atmosphere (∼50% of the total tree uptake). By partitioning the total uptake of lead into uptake from the atmosphere and different soil layers using an isotopic mixing model, we estimate that ∼0.03 ± 0.01, 0.02 ± 0.01 and 0.05 ± 0.01 mg Pb m
−2 yr
−1 (mean ± SD), is taken up from the mor layer, the mineral soil and the atmosphere, respectively, by plants in the undisturbed mature forest. These small fluxes, which are at least a magnitude lower than reported downward migration losses, suggest that plant uptake will not strongly prolong the self-cleaning rate of the mor layer.