Abstract
Soil water repellency (SWR) has been detected worldwide in various biomes and climates. However, this phenomenon has not been shown yet in the Brazilian neotropical savanna. The present study addressed the following questions: (a) Does SWR occur in the Brazilian neotropical savanna? If so, (b) does it exhibit seasonality? (c) Does it influence infiltration? To do that, we selected two similar study areas covered by similar soils (oxisol) and vegetation (netropical savanna). We performed water repellency and infiltration tests in both areas during the transition from dry to wet season. Our results indicate that SWR occurs in soils of the Brazilian neotropical savanna only during the dry season and influence water infiltration in the dry season. The likely cause of SWR might be related to the chemical composition of soil organic matter since neotropical savanna plants produce hydrophobic substances as a survival strategy, especially during the dry season.
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Data published in this study are available on request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful for the support of the staff of the following institutions: Brasília National Park, Chico Mendes Instituto for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) and Ecological Reserve of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (RECOR-IBGE).
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Juliana Farias de Lima Oliveira: conceptualization, methodology, formal analysis, original draft preparation, study design, methodology, data curation, and validation. Sérgio Fernandes Mendonça Filho: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, original draft preparation. Luiz Felippe Salemi: supervision, project administration, validation, review, and editing.
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Fig. 1S
Monthly precipitation in the two study areas: Brasília National Park - BNP (light blue) and Ecological Reserve of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - RECOR (blue).
Fig 2S.
Water Drop Penetration Time in two studied areas: Brasília National Park - BNP (a) and Ecological Reserve of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics - RECOR (b).
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de Lima Oliveira, J.F., Mendonça Filho, S.F. & Salemi, L.F. Soil water repellency in the Brazilian neotropical savanna: first detection, seasonal effect, and influence on infiltrability. Environ Monit Assess 195, 1504 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-12097-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-023-12097-6