<b>Fertilization drives divergent responses of soil aggregation, operational Fe–Al–Mn pools and potential carbon turnover in an acidic tea soil</b>

We tested how six fertilizer regimes affected wet-sieved aggregate structure, operational Fe, Al and Mn pools, bulk X-ray diffraction profiles and 30-day, aggregate-resolved potential carbon mineralization in an acidic tea soil. The inferential archive comprised three spatially distinct, independent field replicate plots per regime; synchrotron-radiation FTIR maps provided descriptive microscale context.

Operational Fe–Al–Mn pools showed the strongest multivariate treatment response (R²=0.832, q=0.00025), whereas bulk XRD profiles did not differ after correction (q=0.236). No corrected evidence supported a shared treatment-response configuration across aggregation, operational-mineral, mineralization and XRD domains. After treatment centring, operational-mineral pools covaried with fraction-specific potential mineralization (RV=0.638, q=0.0081), provisionally localizing to 0.25–2 mm aggregates (RV=0.498, q=0.0453).