Molecular Weight Distribution of Humic Acids Isolated from Buried Soils and Yedoma Sediments

Abstract

The soils of cold regions store up to 60% of all organic carbon on the planet. As a result of climate change, this organic matter can be biodegraded by microorganisms and thereby make an additional contribution to carbon balance. Nowadays, there are fragmentary data on organic C stocks in high-latitude soils and single works on the analysis of the quality of buried organic matter. This paper presents the first data on the molecular weight distributions of humic acids (HAs) extracted from soils and sediments in Yedoma. Molecular weight distributions of HAs preparations were obtained on an AKTAbasic 10 UPS chromatographic system (Amersham Biosciences, Sweden) using a SuperdexTM 200 10/300 GL column (with cross-linked dextran gel, fractionation range for globular proteins 10–600 kDa). As a result of the study, it was found that the buried soil horizons are characterized by the highest content of low molecular weight fraction (with molecular mass (Mr) 1.4–1.9 kDa and molar fraction in the range of 54.3–67.1%). The high molecular weight fraction is concentrated mainly in the superficial horizons and decreases with depth (with Mr 299–346 kDa and molar fraction in the range of 3.4–9.8%). In the Yedoma sediments, the maximum content of the medium-molecular fraction is observed (with Mr 24.6 kDa and 39.6% of the molar fraction), which may indicate a low rate of organic matter transformation in the permafrost. The data obtained serve as a database of analysis in terms of modeling the global carbon cycle in the cold regions of the planet.