HR: 1340h
AN: B13C-1384    [Abstracts]
TI: Potassium Solubilization in Fungal Degradation of Aluminosilicate Minerals
AU: * Teng, H
EM: hteng@gwu.edu
AF: Department of Chemistry The George Washington University, 725 21st Street, NW Corcoran Hall, Room 107, Washington, DC 20052, United States
AU: Lian, B
EM: lianbin@mails.gyig.ac.cn
AF: State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, 550002, China
AB: Potassium is an essential soil nutrient that performs a multitude of important biological functions to maintain plant growth and health. However, plants cannot directly use mineralic potassium. Only those that are released by weathering or dissolved in soil water are available for plants' nutrient uptake. On the other hand, microorganisms and related biological activities often play critical roles in mineral weathering and hence participate heavily in the geochemical cycles of nutrient elements. Here, we study the microbial release of potassium from K-bearing minerals orthoclase and illite. A strain of thermophilic fungus A. fumigatus was cultured with a mixture of the minerals to determine if microbe-mineral interactions enhance the solubilization of mineralic potassium. Experiments were carried in two settings, one with the mineral grains and the fungal cells in direct contact, and the other employing a membrane (pore size 0.22 um) to separate the two. Measurements over a period of 30 days showed that, irrespective of the experimental setup, the concentration of free K in the culture was drastically higher than those in any of the control experiments where no living organism was present. Moreover, the occurrence of mineral-cell physical contact enhanced potassium release by an additional factor of 3 to 4 in comparison to the separation experiments. For contact experiments, Electron Probe Microanalysis revealed the formation of mycelium-mineral aggregates, and Atomic Force Microscopy imaging further indicated the possible ingestion of mineral particles by the fungus cells. Contrasting to what was observed and expected in control experiments, the potassium solubilization rate showed a positive dependence upon pH when fungi and minerals were mixed directly, and exhibited no correlations with solution acidity if cell-rock contact was restrained. These results appear to suggest that A. fumigatus promoted potassium release by means of at least three likely routes, one through the complexation of soluble organic ligands, another appealing to the immobile biopolymers such as the insoluble components of secretion, and the third related to the mechanical forces in association with the direct physical contact between cells and mineral particles.
DE: 0400 BIOGEOSCIENCES
DE: 0409 Bioavailability: chemical speciation and complexation
DE: 0412 Biogeochemical kinetics and reaction modeling (0414, 0793, 1615, 4805, 4912)
DE: 1000 GEOCHEMISTRY
DE: 1055 Organic and biogenic geochemistry
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting