Charcoal as important factor in soil organic matter formation in Brazilian ecosystem

Abstract

Ferralsols cover almost 40% of Brazil and can be found under a wide variety of vegetation and in many different landscapes. Some of them exhibit a high content of organic carbon (umbric epipedon) and thus represent a important sink of stable C. Also, many of them contain charcoal fragments suggesting that frequent (natural) fires affected their organic matter (OM) composition. However, in spite of many effort, the composition of its OM and the mechanisms involved in its stabilization are still to explore (Marques et al., 2011).