Personal
D. Manuel Suarez Abelenda.
Biologist graduate
Department of the Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry.
University of Santiago de Compostela (USC).
Technology Investigations Institute. Environmental Technology Laboratory.
Constantino Candeira. Campus Sur.
15706 Santiago de Compostela.
Telephone: +34 66299999016039
E-mail: manuel.suarez(at)usc.es; manuel.suarez(at)wur.nl. |
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My name is Manuel Suárez Abelenda and work in the Soil Department in the Santiago de Compostela University making the thesis. I am working with the carbon stocks in the soils of Galicia and with the stabilisation process. I have been in the Soil Department of the Wageningen University doing pyrolytical interpretation during four months.
Academic formation
- Biologist graduate. Biologist Faculty. Santiago de Compostela University. Graduated in 2004.
- Items of the doctorate programme: 'Contribution to the study of soil organic matter: Carbon fractionation in coal and alkaline soils'. 2004-2006
- Thesis stage: 'The effect of forest fires on carbon forms, stability and accumulation capacity. Vegetation evolution after fire'.
- Location: Edaphology and Agricultural Chemistry Department of the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC).
- Thesis Supervisors: Felipe Macías Vázquez. Professor of Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry. University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), Marta Camps Arbestain. Agro-ecosystems and Natural Resources. Department. NEIKER. Basque Institute of Agricultural Investigation and Development.
Academic works
Environmental Impact Studies and Monitoring and Environmental Vigilance Plans. Santiago de Compostela University.
Science Projects
Establishment of background levels of heavy metals and trace elements in Galician soils.
Organic matter stabilization mechanisms and their quantification in forest soils. Effects and importance of forestry practices.
Subject of PhD thesis
The effect of forest fires on carbon forms, stability and accumulation capacity. Vegetation evolution after fire.
In several reports estimations have been made about different C pools in the earth, being the soils an important reservoir five times larger than the biosphere. And, an important understanding about all the stabilisation mechanisms of the organic matter in soils and therefore an enhanced in the C contents can be an important mitigation factor against the green house effect. The soils placed in Galicia (north of Spain) have the capacity to accumulate high contents of organic matter. In this thesis, we have to do estimations about the capacity to carbon accumulation of soils from Galicia and we will try to understand all mechanisms related with this carbon concentration.
Work carried out in Wageningen
Characterization of organic matter in Alu-andic soils in Basque CountryThe research was done at the Earth System Science Group in the Atlas building
(Wageningen University Research Centre) during the period September - December 2008, and supervised by Peter Buurman.
Organic matter chemistry was investigated in order to find out whether SOM stabilization mechanisms in soils with alu-andic properties are different from soils under similar vegetation that don’t have such properties. Studies on alu-andic soils suggest a preferential protection against microbial decay of aluminium-organic complexes. In the Alu-andic soils of Basque country, the andic properties result from moderate weathering of mainly pyroclastic deposits. The soils contain short-range-order minerals and/or organo-metallic complexes.
The soils investigated are taken from pyroclastic deposits ( the alu-andic soils) and from non-volcanic sedimentary rocks (non-alu-andic soils). Both groups of soils were under (planted) forest of Pinus pinaster. The objectives of this research is to compare SOM chemistry of alu-andic soils, of soils with properties between alu-andic and non-alu-andic, and of soils without alu-andic properties. Soils with different uses and with Pinus vegetations of different age will be compared.
The methodology used to determine the chemical composition of soil organic matter Pyrolysis-Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (Py-GC/MS). This method consists in heating purified SOM samples in an inert atmosphere, separating the pyrolysis products by gas chromatography, and identification of separated compounds by mass spectrometry. Compound abundance is (semi) quantified, and data are analysed by multivariate statistics.
Factor analysis of all compounds in all samples produces Scatterplots of both the distribution of compounds (factor loadings) and that of samples (factor scores) in Factor 1-Factor 2 space. Although most topsoils of the andic soils are clearly different from the majority of subsoils of the non-andic ones, there is a large overlap that cannot be interpreted with the present information on the sampled sites. Further information on litter chemistry of specific tree species, and on local vegetation will be collected.