Relationships between cluster root-bearing taxa and laterite across landscapes in southwest Western Australia: an approach using airborne radiometric and digital elevation models

As part of a general soil and regolith mapping exercise across cleared and remnant bush land, radiometric data for distribution of potassium (K), uranium (U) and thorium (Th) were examined alongside relief models and floristic and soil surveys in test catchments at Elashgin and Toolibin in the Western Australian wheat-belt. The Elashgin survey showed that highly weathered low K soils co-concentrated U and Th and were vegetated mainly by cluster root-bearing Proteaceae and Casuarinaceae. In granitic soils ratios of U to Th were higher and cluster root bearing taxa much less prominent, except where ferricrete gravels were concentrated. Draping of radiometric imagery over a digital elevation model showed spiral waveforms of high and low U and Th signal which were largely independent of topography but demarcated different oligotrophic communities. General observations and a detailed 900-m transect along an aeolian sand plume at Toolibin showed very high U and Th in ferricrete gravels where Proteaceae were dominant, but failed to separate proteaceous versus myrtaceous shrublands on deep sands due to truncation of signal. Augering along the transect and examination of floristic, soil and signal composition of 32 sites in the Lake Toolibin catchment confirmed presence and degree of development of ferricretes in the rhizosphere of Proteaceae-dominated communities and showed high reactivity scores for Al in 'Bs' horizons in profiles carrying such vegetation. Highly specific associations between Proteaceae and very high U and Th were generally evident on exposed ferricrete gravels. The data are discussed in relation to the effects of root exudates on ferricrete formation and destruction and how the broader spatial pattern of such processes might relate to competition for soil phosphorous.