Mechanisms of solute transport affect small‐scale abundance and function of soil microorganisms in the detritusphere

In the detritusphere, particulate organic matter offers new sites for microorganisms, whereas soluble substrates are transported into the adjacent soil. We investigated how mechanisms of solute transport affect microbial abundance and function in the detritusphere. In a first experiment, transport was restricted to diffusion, whereas in a second experiment it was dominated by convection. Two soil moisture contents were established in each experiment. When diffusion was the exclusive transport mechanism, the addition of maize litter induced distinct gradients in enzyme activities, soil organic C content and microbial biomass to a depth of 1.5–2.8 mm. Convection enlarged these gradients to 2.5–3.0 mm. The moisture regime modified the temporal pattern of diffusive C transport, microbial growth and enzyme release by inducing faster transport at large water contents. Convective transport seemed to be unaffected by soil moisture content. Using a convective‐diffusive transport model with first‐order decay, it was possible to simulate the observed activity profiles. The results indicate that the spatial dimension of the detritusphere is governed by the ratio between decay rate of available substrates and transport rate. Bacteria and fungi showed differing utilization strategies as revealed by coupling phospholipid fatty acid (PLFA) analysis with stable isotope techniques. Fungi assimilated C directly in the litter, whereas bacteria took up the substrates in the soil and therefore depended more on transport processes than fungi. Our results demonstrate the impact of physicochemical conditions on the abundance and function of microorganisms in the detritusphere. Furthermore, the combination of enzymatic measurements and mathematical transport modelling may offer a new way to measure substrate decay rates in soil.