title: Phosphorus in agricultural soils: drivers of its distribution at the global scale.
abstract: Phosphorus (P) availability in soils limits crop yields in many regions of the World, while excess of soil P triggers aquatic eutrophication in other regions. Numerous processes drive the global spatial distribution of P in agricultural soils, but their relative roles remain unclear. Here, we combined several global data sets describing these drivers with a soil P dynamics model to simulate the distribution of P in agricultural soils and to assess the contributions of the different drivers at the global scale. We analysed both the labile inorganic P (PILAB), a proxy of the pool involved in plant nutrition and the total soil P (PTOT). We found that the soil biogeochemical background corresponding to P inherited from natural soils at the conversion to agriculture (BIOG) and farming practices (FARM) were the main drivers of the spatial variability in cropland soil P content but that their contribution varied between PTOTvs. PILAB. When the spatial variability was computed between grid cells at half-degree resolution, we found that almost all of the PTOTspatial variability could be explained by BIOG, while BIOG and FARM explained 38% and 63% of PILABspatial variability, respectively. Our work also showed that the driver contribution was sensitive to the spatial scale characterizing the variability (grid cell vs. continent) and to the region of interest (global vs. tropics for instance). In particular, the heterogeneity of farming practices between continents was large enough to make FARM contribute to the variability in PTOTat that scale. We thus demonstrated how the different drivers were combined to explain the global distribution of agricultural soil P. Our study is also a promising approach to investigate the potential effect of P as a limiting factor for agroecosystems at the global scale.
authors.affiliation: ISPA, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, INRA, 33140, Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.identifier: 0000-0001-8405-1304
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ringeval
authors.affiliation: ISPA, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, INRA, 33140, Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Augusto
authors.affiliation: MaIAGE, INRA, Université Paris-Saclay, 78350, Jouy-en-Josas, France.
authors.forename: Hervé
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Monod
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Sciences-Geochemistry, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, 3508 TA, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Dirk
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: van Apeldoorn
authors.affiliation: Department of Earth Sciences-Geochemistry, Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, 3508 TA, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lex
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Bouwman
authors.affiliation: Environmental Science Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831-6335, USA.
authors.forename: Xiaojuan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Yang
authors.affiliation: ISPA, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, INRA, 33140, Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: David L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Achat
authors.affiliation: Department of Geography, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA.
authors.forename: Louise P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Chini
authors.affiliation: George Lemaître Centre for Earth and Climate Research, Earth & Life Institute, Université Catholique de Louvain, 1348, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium.
authors.forename: Kristof
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Van Oost
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
authors.forename: Bertrand
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Guenet
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91191, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.|Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.|Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, 100871, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Rong
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: GAME-CNRM - UMR3589, CNRS/Météo-France, Toulouse, France.
authors.forename: Bertrand
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Decharme
authors.affiliation: ISPA, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, INRA, 33140, Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nesme
authors.affiliation: ISPA, Bordeaux Sciences Agro, INRA, 33140, Villenave d'Ornon, France.
authors.forename: Sylvain
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pellerin
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D018556:Crops, Agricultural; D010758:Phosphorus / Q000737:chemistry*; D010944:Plants; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D010758:Phosphorus
keywords: agricultural soils; biogeochemical cycles; global scale; modelling; phosphorus