Soil processes in the Aeolian Litoral Sheet of Doñana National Park (Huelva, SW Spain): the catena of Colón small-lake ecosystem

Abstract

The wetlands on the quartz sands aeolian sheet make up one of the ecosystems most recognized and important of the Doñana National Park and Doñana Biological Reserve (South Spain). More than 650 temporal small-lakes have been surveyed in the abundant sand depressions of the aeolian sheet, the most are a hydro-geomorphological dune-small-lake system. This paper studies the pedological processes around Colón small-lake ecosystem wetland (COL), one of the more interesting temporal small-lakes. The movement of fine particles through sand dunes ("sand washing") and their subsequent accumulation in depth is the process responsible for the formation of a large part of the small and medium small-lakes in the Eolian Litoral Sheet of Doñana. Their bodies of water are supported by these clay layers generated corresponding sometimes to ancient soil horizons formed under previous different ecological conditions. The vegetation, the soil morphology and the evolution of the physical-chemical processes studied in this geosystem small-lake of Colón allow understand this phenomenon of chronologies very recent.