Estimates of soil carbon concentration in tropical and temperate forest and woodland from available GIS data on three continents

Abstract. Representing the response of soil carbon dynamics to global environmental change requires the incorporation of multiple tools in the development of predictive models. An important tool to construct and test models is the incorporation of bomb radiocarbon in soil organic matter during the past decades. In this manuscript, we combined radiocarbon data and a previously developed empirical model to explore decade-scale soil carbon dynamics in a temperate forest ecosystem at the Harvard Forest, Massachusetts, USA. We evaluated the contribution of different soil C fractions to both total soil CO2 efflux and microbially respired C. We tested the performance of the model based on measurable soil organic matter fractions against a decade of radiocarbon measurements. The model was then challenged with radiocarbon measurements from a warming and N addition experiment to test multiple hypotheses about the different response of soil C fractions to the experimental manipulations. Our results showed that the empirical model satisfactorily predicts the trends of radiocarbon in litter, density fractions, and respired CO2 observed over a decade in the soils not subjected to manipulation. However, the model, modified with prescribed relationships for temperature and decomposition rates, predicted most but not all the observations from the field experiment where soil temperatures and nitrogen levels were increased, suggesting that a larger degree of complexity and mechanistic relations need to be added to the model to predict short-term responses and transient dynamics.

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Simulation of soil carbon cycling and carbon balance following clear-cutting in a mid-temperate forest and contribution to the sink of atmospheric CO2

Vegetatio ◽

10.1007/bf00044680 ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 121 (1-2) ◽

pp. 147-156 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Kaneyuki Nakane ◽

Nam-Juu Lee

Keyword(s):

Soil Carbon ◽

Carbon Cycling ◽

Carbon Balance ◽

Temperate Forest ◽

Atmospheric Co2 ◽

Clear Cutting ◽

Soil Carbon Cycling

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Influence of different tree-harvesting intensities on forest soil carbon stocks in boreal and northern temperate forest ecosystems

Forest Ecology and Management ◽

10.1016/j.foreco.2015.04.034 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 351 ◽

pp. 9-19 ◽

Cited By ~ 59

Author(s):

Nicholas Clarke ◽

Per Gundersen ◽

Ulrika Jönsson-Belyazid ◽

O. Janne Kjønaas ◽

Tryggve Persson ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Soil Carbon ◽

Forest Soil ◽

Temperate Forest ◽

Forest Ecosystems ◽

Carbon Stocks ◽

Soil Carbon Stocks ◽

Tree Harvesting

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Long-Term Warming Alters Carbohydrate Degradation Potential in Temperate Forest Soils

Applied and Environmental Microbiology ◽

10.1128/aem.02012-16 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 82 (22) ◽

pp. 6518-6530 ◽

Cited By ~ 28

Author(s):

Grace Pold ◽

Andrew F. Billings ◽

Jeff L. Blanchard ◽

Daniel B. Burkhardt ◽

Serita D. Frey ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Microbial Communities ◽

Soil Carbon ◽

Carbon Cycling ◽

Temperate Forest ◽

Mineral Soil ◽

Soil Microbial Communities ◽

Organic Horizon ◽

Soil Microbial ◽

Carbohydrate Degradation

ABSTRACTAs Earth's climate warms, soil carbon pools and the microbial communities that process them may change, altering the way in which carbon is recycled in soil. In this study, we used a combination of metagenomics and bacterial cultivation to evaluate the hypothesis that experimentally raising soil temperatures by 5°C for 5, 8, or 20 years increased the potential for temperate forest soil microbial communities to degrade carbohydrates. Warming decreased the proportion of carbohydrate-degrading genes in the organic horizon derived from eukaryotes and increased the fraction of genes in the mineral soil associated withActinobacteriain all studies. Genes associated with carbohydrate degradation increased in the organic horizon after 5 years of warming but had decreased in the organic horizon after warming the soil continuously for 20 years. However, a greater proportion of the 295 bacteria from 6 phyla (10 classes, 14 orders, and 34 families) isolated from heated plots in the 20-year experiment were able to depolymerize cellulose and xylan than bacterial isolates from control soils. Together, these findings indicate that the enrichment of bacteria capable of degrading carbohydrates could be important for accelerated carbon cycling in a warmer world.IMPORTANCEThe massive carbon stocks currently held in soils have been built up over millennia, and while numerous lines of evidence indicate that climate change will accelerate the processing of this carbon, it is unclear whether the genetic repertoire of the microbes responsible for this elevated activity will also change. In this study, we showed that bacteria isolated from plots subject to 20 years of 5°C of warming were more likely to depolymerize the plant polymers xylan and cellulose, but that carbohydrate degradation capacity is not uniformly enriched by warming treatment in the metagenomes of soil microbial communities. This study illustrates the utility of combining culture-dependent and culture-independent surveys of microbial communities to improve our understanding of the role changing microbial communities may play in soil carbon cycling under climate change.

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Sugarcane straw decomposition and carbon balance as a function of initial biomass and vinasse addition to soil surface

Bragantia ◽

10.1590/1678-4499.580 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 76 (1) ◽

pp. 135-144 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Carina Sayuri Yamaguchi ◽

Nilza Patrícia Ramos ◽

Cristina Silva Carvalho ◽

Adriana Marlene Moreno Pires ◽

Cristiano Alberto de Andrade

Keyword(s):

Soil Carbon ◽

Carbon Concentration ◽

Decomposition Rate ◽

Soil Layer ◽

Soil Surface ◽

Soil Samples ◽

Water Retention Capacity ◽

Straw Decomposition ◽

Retention Capacity ◽

Sugarcane Straw

ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to evaluate sugarcane straw decomposition and the potential of increasing soil carbon as a function of the initial biomass and vinasse addition to soil surface. The experimente consisted of incubation (240 days, in the dark, humidity equivalent to 70% of soil water retention capacity and average temperature of 28 °C) of Oxisol soil samples (0-20 cm soil layer) with straw added to soil surface at rates of 2; 4; 8; 16 and 24 t∙ha−1 and with or without vinasse addition (200 m3∙ha-1). The following variables were determined: released C-CO2, remaining straw dry matter, carbon straw and soil carbon concentration. The added biomass did not influence straw decomposition rate, but vinasse treatments provided rates between 70 and 94% compared to 68 to 75% for the ones without vinasse. The straw (16 and 24 t∙ha−1) decomposition rate increased between 14 and 35% due to vinasse addition, but the same behavior was not observed for released C-CO2. This result was explained by the twofold increase of soil carbon concentration, estimated by mass balance and confirmed analytically by the carbon concentration of soil samples. It was concluded that sugarcane straw decomposition, under no limiting conditions of humidity and temperature, did not depend on biomass initially added and that vinasse addition accelerated straw decomposition and potentialized carbon input into the soil.

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The effects of land management (grazing intensity) vs. the effects of topography, soil properties, vegetation type, and climate on soil carbon concentration in Southern Patagonia

Journal of Arid Environments ◽

10.1016/j.jaridenv.2016.06.017 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 134 ◽

pp. 73-78 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

P.L. Peri ◽

B. Ladd ◽

R.G. Lasagno ◽

G. Martínez Pastur

Keyword(s):

Soil Properties ◽

Soil Carbon ◽

Land Management ◽

Carbon Concentration ◽

Vegetation Type ◽

Grazing Intensity ◽

Southern Patagonia

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Predicting decadal trends and transient responses of radiocarbon storage and fluxes in a temperate forest soil

Biogeosciences Discussions ◽

10.5194/bgd-9-2197-2012 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 2197-2232 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

C. A. Sierra ◽

S. E. Trumbore ◽

E. A. Davidson ◽

S. D. Frey ◽

K. E. Savage ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Organic Matter ◽

Soil Organic Matter ◽

Soil Carbon ◽

Empirical Model ◽

Temperate Forest ◽

Global Environmental Change ◽

Carbon Dynamics ◽

Co2 Efflux ◽

Soil C ◽

Soil Carbon Dynamics

Abstract. Representing the response of soil carbon dynamics to global environmental change requires the incorporation of multiple tools in the development of predictive models. An important tool to construct and test models is the incorporation of bomb radiocarbon in soil organic matter during the past decades. In this manuscript, we combined radiocarbon data and a previously developed empirical model to explore decade-scale soil carbon dynamics in a temperate forest ecosystem at the Harvard Forest, Massachusetts, USA. We evaluated the contribution of different soil C fractions to both total soil CO2 efflux and microbially-respired C. We tested the performance of the model based on measurable soil organic matter fractions against a decade of radiocarbon measurements. The model was then challenged with radiocarbon measurements from a warming and N addition experiment to test multiple hypotheses about the different response of soil C fractions to the experimental manipulations. Our results showed that the empirical model satisfactorily predicts the trends of radiocarbon in litter, density fractions, and respired CO2 observed over a decade in the soils not subjected to manipulation. However, the model, modified with prescribed relationships for temperature and decomposition rates, predicted most but not all the observations from the field experiment where soil temperatures and nitrogen levels were increased, suggesting that a larger degree of complexity and mechanistic relations need to be added to the model to predict short-term responses and transient dynamics.

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