Marine Biology Commons^™

Glomalin Accumulated In Seagrass Sediments Reveals Past Alterations In Soil Quality Due To Land-Use Change, Lourdes López-Merino, Oscar Serrano, María Fernanda Adame, Miguel-Ángel Mateo, Antonio Martínez Cortizas

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), symbionts with most terrestrial plants, produce glomalin-related soil protein (GRSP), which plays a major role in soil structure and quality. Both fungi hyphae and protein production in soils are affected by perturbations related to land-use changes, implying that GRSP is a sensitive indicator of soil quality. Unfortunately, GRSP degrades within years to decades in oxic environments, preventing its use as palaeoecological proxy. However, GRSP is transported to marine, near-shore anoxic sediments, where it accumulates and remains non-degraded, enabling the assessment of its potential as a palaeoecological proxy for soil ecosystem's health. Exploiting this fact, we have …