In a series of two papers, Kunfu Pi, a former ERG postdoctoral fellow, and his colleagues explore the regional and depth-dependent distributions and chemical speciation of the micronutrient selenium (Se) in organic-rich soils of NE China known as mollisols. The results highlight that fluvial transport and deposition, as well as land use change, are the main drivers of the spatial variability and speciation of Se in the mollisols. In addition, changes in soil acidity and redox conditions accompanying the conversion of dryland mollisols to rice paddies cause Se loss from the soils by leaching to the groundwater and volatilization. Ultimately, this may lead to a depreciation of the rice as a dietary source of Se.
The papers can be found at:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.2c03647
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.3c00011
