ABSTRACT

Selenium (Se) deficiency and excess in agricultural ecosystems are related to many human health problems through the food chain and depend on the spatial variability and bioavailability of Se in soils. This paper examines the spatial variability of Se in soils as affected by geologic and pedogenic processes and its effects on rice grains, groundwater, and human health using Rugao County, Jiangsu Province, an agricultural area in Yangtze River Delta Region, which has a high level of nonagenarians, as a case study. The results showed that total soil Se (T-Se) concentration in the study area (average 0.13 ± 0.02 mg kg^-1, n = 203) was close to the Se Clark value, the Se mean concentration in earth crust, and had narrow spatial variation as a result of consistent geological processes. As a fraction of the potential bio-available Se in ecosystems, soil water soluble Se (WS-Se) (average 2.27 ± 1.09 μg kg^-1, n = 203) had wide spatial variation. The higher concentrations of WS-Se were spatially distributed on loamy and highly weathered soils in the east and north of the county. Spatial heterogeneity of WS-Se was primarily due to changes in soil physicochemical properties caused by pedogenic processes related to cultivation. Average Se concentration in the rice grains and groundwater were 97 ± 69 μg kg^-1 (n = 93) and 0.19 ± 0.21 μg L^-1 (n = 95), respectively. Similar spatial variability and correlation between WS-Se and rice Se, groundwater Se, and longevity ratio (an index of nonagenarians per 100,000 inhabitants), were found, indicating that the soluble fractions of Se in soils play an important role in biogeochemical cycling in the ecosystem and might be an important indicator of Se deficiency or excess in soils. Thorough small-scale surveys of element availability in the soil should be emphasized where geologic settings are simple but pedogenic processes are complex due to intensive human activities. So WS-Se in soils was advised as a better indicator for Se environmental effect than T-Se, especially when dealing with simple geologic settings and complex pedogenic processes on a small scale.