Fate of glyphosate and its degradation products AMPA, glycine and sarcosine in an agricultural soil: Implications for environmental risk assessment

Glyphosate can be biodegraded via the aminomethylphosponic acid (AMPA) and the sarcosine/glycine pathway leading to the formation of three intermediate products AMPA, sarcosine or glycine. The fate of the three in-termediate compounds of glyphosate biodegradation including nature of non-extractable residues (NERs; harmless biogenic [NERsbiogenic] versus hazardous xenobiotic [NERsxenobiotic]) in soils has not been investigated yet. This information is crucial for an assessment of environmental risks related to the speciation of glyphosate-derived NERs which may stem from glyphosate intermediates. Therefore, we incubated 13C-and 15N-labeled glyphosate (2-13C,15N-glyphosate) and its degradation product AMPA (13C,15N-AMPA), sarcosine (13C3,15N-sarcosine) or glycine (13C2,15N-glycine) in an agricultural soil separately for a period of 75 days. 13C2-glycine and 13C3-sarcosine mineralized rapidly compared to 2-13C-glyphosate and 13C-AMPA. The mineralization of 13C-AMPA was lowest among all four compounds due to its persistent nature. Only 0.5% of the initially added 2-13C,15N-glyphosate and still about 30% of the initially added 13C,15N-AMPA was extracted from soil after 75 days. The NERs formed from 13C,15N-AMPA were mostly NERsxenobiotic as compared to other three compounds for which significant amounts of NERsbiogenic were determined. We noticed 2-13C,15N-glyphosate was biodegraded via two biodegradation pathways simultaneously; however, the sarcosine/glycine pathway with the formation of harmless NERsbiogenic presumably dominated.

Automated summary

Glyphosate can be biodegraded via the AMPA and the sarcosine/glycine pathways, producing three intermediate products - AMPA, sarcosine or glycine. The nature of non-extractable residues (NERs; harmless biogenic [NERsbiogenic] versus hazardous xenobiotic [NERsxenobiotic]) of the three intermediate compounds in glyphosate biodegradation in soils has not been investigated yet, which is crucial for assessing environmental risks.