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Soil Respiration and Organic Carbon Dynamics with Grassland Conversions to Woodlands in Temperate China

Soils are the largest terrestrial carbon store and soil respiration is the second-largest flux in ecosystem carbon cycling. Across China's temperate region, climatic changes and human activities have frequently caused the transformation of grasslands to woodlands. However, the effect of this tr...

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Autores principales: Wang, Wei, Zeng, Wenjing, Chen, Weile, Zeng, Hui, Fang, Jingyun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3751950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24058408
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0071986
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author Wang, Wei
Zeng, Wenjing
Chen, Weile
Zeng, Hui
Fang, Jingyun
author_facet Wang, Wei
Zeng, Wenjing
Chen, Weile
Zeng, Hui
Fang, Jingyun
author_sort Wang, Wei
collection PubMed
description Soils are the largest terrestrial carbon store and soil respiration is the second-largest flux in ecosystem carbon cycling. Across China's temperate region, climatic changes and human activities have frequently caused the transformation of grasslands to woodlands. However, the effect of this transition on soil respiration and soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics remains uncertain in this area. In this study, we measured in situ soil respiration and SOC storage over a two-year period (Jan. 2007–Dec. 2008) from five characteristic vegetation types in a forest-steppe ecotone of temperate China, including grassland (GR), shrubland (SH), as well as in evergreen coniferous (EC), deciduous coniferous (DC) and deciduous broadleaved forest (DB), to evaluate the changes of soil respiration and SOC storage with grassland conversions to diverse types of woodlands. Annual soil respiration increased by 3%, 6%, 14%, and 22% after the conversion from GR to EC, SH, DC, and DB, respectively. The variation in soil respiration among different vegetation types could be well explained by SOC and soil total nitrogen content. Despite higher soil respiration in woodlands, SOC storage and residence time increased in the upper 20 cm of soil. Our results suggest that the differences in soil environmental conditions, especially soil substrate availability, influenced the level of annual soil respiration produced by different vegetation types. Moreover, shifts from grassland to woody plant dominance resulted in increased SOC storage. Given the widespread increase in woody plant abundance caused by climate change and large-scale afforestation programs, the soils are expected to accumulate and store increased amounts of organic carbon in temperate areas of China.
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spelling pubmed-37519502013-09-20 Soil Respiration and Organic Carbon Dynamics with Grassland Conversions to Woodlands in Temperate China Wang, Wei Zeng, Wenjing Chen, Weile Zeng, Hui Fang, Jingyun PLoS One Research Article Soils are the largest terrestrial carbon store and soil respiration is the second-largest flux in ecosystem carbon cycling. Across China's temperate region, climatic changes and human activities have frequently caused the transformation of grasslands to woodlands. However, the effect of this transition on soil respiration and soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics remains uncertain in this area. In this study, we measured in situ soil respiration and SOC storage over a two-year period (Jan. 2007–Dec. 2008) from five characteristic vegetation types in a forest-steppe ecotone of temperate China, including grassland (GR), shrubland (SH), as well as in evergreen coniferous (EC), deciduous coniferous (DC) and deciduous broadleaved forest (DB), to evaluate the changes of soil respiration and SOC storage with grassland conversions to diverse types of woodlands. Annual soil respiration increased by 3%, 6%, 14%, and 22% after the conversion from GR to EC, SH, DC, and DB, respectively. The variation in soil respiration among different vegetation types could be well explained by SOC and soil total nitrogen content. Despite higher soil respiration in woodlands, SOC storage and residence time increased in the upper 20 cm of soil. Our results suggest that the differences in soil environmental conditions, especially soil substrate availability, influenced the level of annual soil respiration produced by different vegetation types. Moreover, shifts from grassland to woody plant dominance resulted in increased SOC storage. Given the widespread increase in woody plant abundance caused by climate change and large-scale afforestation programs, the soils are expected to accumulate and store increased amounts of organic carbon in temperate areas of China. Public Library of Science 2013-08-23 /pmc/articles/PMC3751950/ /pubmed/24058408 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0071986 Text en © 2013 Wang et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Wang, Wei
Zeng, Wenjing
Chen, Weile
Zeng, Hui
Fang, Jingyun
Soil Respiration and Organic Carbon Dynamics with Grassland Conversions to Woodlands in Temperate China
title Soil Respiration and Organic Carbon Dynamics with Grassland Conversions to Woodlands in Temperate China
title_full Soil Respiration and Organic Carbon Dynamics with Grassland Conversions to Woodlands in Temperate China
title_fullStr Soil Respiration and Organic Carbon Dynamics with Grassland Conversions to Woodlands in Temperate China
title_full_unstemmed Soil Respiration and Organic Carbon Dynamics with Grassland Conversions to Woodlands in Temperate China
title_short Soil Respiration and Organic Carbon Dynamics with Grassland Conversions to Woodlands in Temperate China
title_sort soil respiration and organic carbon dynamics with grassland conversions to woodlands in temperate china
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3751950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24058408
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0071986
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