Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors.
Source: AGU Advances
Roots play a role in the weathering and breakdown of rocks, but to what extent is largely unknown. Osorio-Leon et al. [2025] use an ingenious field setup to measure gasses and water constituents around deep roots in sandstone bedrock soils. They find that they can only reproduce their measurements with a reactive transport model when they include the CO2 production that is expected from root respiration or microbial respiration around roots.
The authors further show that the export of weathered solutes from the bedrock by water flow is enhanced by more than 40% through this deep root action. These results reveal that deeply rooted trees are important contributors to hardrock breakdown and ultimately stream chemistry. 
Citation: Osorio-Leon, I. D., Rempe, D. M., Golla, J. K., Bouchez, J., & Druhan, J. L. (2025). Deep roots supply reactivity and enhance silicate weathering in the bedrock vadose zone. AGU Advances, 6, e2025AV001692. https://doi.org/10.1029/2025AV001692
—Marc F. P. Bierkens, Editor, AGU Advances
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