Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment

Carbon mineralisation and the variation characteristics of organic carbon pools in the soil of the natural forests in China

Author(s):

Xiaojuan An ¹, Bing Wang ², Wei Dai ³*, Tian Yang ³, Jianmei Zou ³

Recieved Date: 2013-06-18, Accepted Date: 2013-09-26

Abstract:

In order to study the variation characteristics of organic carbon pools in the soil of the natural forests in China, six natural forests in China were chosen as the research objects. They were Pinus massoniana (PM), evergreen broad leaved forest (BF), deciduous oak forest (DO), pine-oak forest (PO), Pinus koraiensis (PK) and Pinus tabulaeformis (PT). Double exponential models to fit the soil organic carbon mineralisation and further correlation analysis and AVON analysis were also used to analyse the content of soil organic carbon and the content variation characteristics of soil organic carbon fractions: potentially mineralisable carbon pool of soil (C₀),  rapidly decomposable pool (C_R), slowly decomposable pool (C_S), soil active carbon pool (Co ), soil slow carbon pool (Cs), soil resistant carbon pool (Cr). Results showed that surface enrichment phenomenon was significant in all types of forest soil organic carbon. Cr and C_R both influenced evergreen broad leaved forest soil, while the other five kinds of forest soil types are only influenced by the Cr. The content of Co and Cs did not differ significantly in the same soil layers of the six forest types and the content of Cr and SOC only increase significantly in the depth of 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm in forest soil. The main constitution of soil organic carbon is Cr, while Co/SOC and Cs/SOC were only about 10% and 4% in the six kinds of forests, respectively. Co/SOC, Cs/SOC and Cr/SOC showed the same vertical variation in the pinus massoniana deciduous oak forest, pine-oak forest, the soil of Pinus koraiensis and Pinus tabulaeformis. This variation may be due to the strong eluviation; however, the unique performance of evergreen broad leaved forest soil may be affected not only by the leaching but also by the impact of litter decomposition characteristics and biological activity. SOC correlated significantly with Cr, Co and Cs, but the highest correlation was with Cr. Cr, Co and Cs exhibited different relevant characteristics. Co and Cs all reached a very significant level with Cr, but the correlation coefficient between the two is very small.

Keywords:

Natural forests, soil organic carbon, soil active carbon, slow carbon, resistant carbon

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Journal: Journal of Food, Agriculture and Environment
Year: 2013
Volume: 11
Issue: 3&4
Category: Environment
Pages: 2717-2721

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