Modeling the impact of heterogeneous spatial distribution of soil microbes on pesticide biodegradation at the centimeter scale

International audienceMicro-organisms and substrates may be heterogeneously distributed in soils. This repartition as well as transport mechanisms bringing them into contact are expected to impact the biodegradation rates. Pinheiro et al [2015] have measured in cm-large reconstructed soil cores the fate of an injection of 2,4-D pesticide for different injection conditions and initial distributions of soil pesticide degraders. Through the calibration of a reactive transport model of these experiments, we show that: i) biodegradation of diffusion-controlled pesticide fluxes is favored by a high Damköhler number (high reaction rate compared to flux rate); ii) abiotic sorption processes are negligible and do not interact strongly with biodegradation; iii) biodegradation is primarily governed by the initial repartition of pesticide and degraders for diffusion-controlled transport, as diffusion greatly limits the flux of pesticide reaching the microbial hotspot due to dilution. These results suggest that for biodegradation to be substantial, a spatial heterogeneity in the repartition of microbes and substrate has to be associated with intermittent and fast transport processes to mix them