Artificial root exudates and soil organic carbon mineralization in a degraded sandy grassland in northern China

Plant root exudates contain various organic and inorganic components that include glucose, citric and oxalic acid. These components affect rhizosphere microbial and microfaunal activities, but the mechanisms are not fully known. Studies concerned from degraded grassland ecosystems with low soil carbon（C） contents are rare, in spite of the global distribution of grasslands in need of restoration. All these have a high potential for carbon sequestration, with a reduced carbon content due to overutilization. An exudate component that rapidly decomposes will increase soil respiration and CO2 emission, while a component that reduces decomposition of native soil carbon can reduce CO2 emission and actually help sequestering carbon in soil. Therefore, to investigate root exudate effects on rhizosphere activity, citric acid, glucose and oxalic acid（0.6 g C/kg dry soil） were added to soils from three biotopes（grassland, fixed dune and mobile dune） located in Naiman, Horqin Sandy Land, Inner Mongolia, China） and subjected to a 24-day incubation experiment together with a control. The soils were also analyzed for general soil properties. The results show that total respiration without exudate addition was highest in grassland soil, intermediate in fixed dune and lowest in mobile dune soil. However, the proportion of native soil carbon mineralized was highest in mobile dune soil, reflecting the low C/N ratio found there. The exudate effects on CO2-C emissions and other variables differed somewhat between biotopes, but total respiration（including that from the added substrates） was significantly increased in all combinations compared with the control, except for oxalic acid addition to mobile dune soil, which reduced CO2-C emissions from native soil carbon. A small but statistically significant increase in pH by the exudate additions in grassland and fixed dune soil was observed, but there was a major decrease from acid additions to mobile dune soil. In contrast, electrical conductivity decreased in grassland and fixed dune soil and increased in mobile dune. Thus, discrete components of root exudates affected soil environmental conditions differently, and responses to root exudates in soils with low carbon contents can differ from those in normal soils. The results indicate a potential for, e.g., acid root exudates to decrease decomposition rate of soil organic matter in low carbon soils, which is of interest for both soil restoration and carbon sequestration.

Extraction and Dynamic Spatial-Temporal Changes of Grassland Deterioration Research Hot Regions in China

The authors use a web crawler to retrieve all periodical articles from CNKI between the 1950 s and 2016 and then parse the abstracts of 293368 articles about grassland deterioration by word segmentation, location matching and other methods. The authors also construct a research hot regions extraction model of grassland deterioration in China based on a comprehensive research hot regions index of toponyms and then analyze the spatial pattern and dynamic change in research hot regions of grassland deterioration in China. The research shows the following：（1） The spatial heterogeneity of grassland deterioration in China can be effectively described by a model of grassland deterioration based on the comprehensive research hot regions index.（2） The research hot regions of grassland deterioration are mainly distributed in most regions of Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Tibet, Gansu and other provinces. The northeastern region of Inner Mongolia（such as Hulunbeier） and the eastern region of Inner Mongolia（such as Xilin Gol, Chifeng and Wulanchabu） are significant hot regions in the study of grassland deterioration.（3） The number of high research hot regions increases from 81 in the 1950 s to 99 in the 2000s; the area increases from 1.038 million km2 to 1.146 million km2. The degree of hot for grassland deterioration research in 197 counties showed an upward trend. This paper also discusses the relationship between the region of research hot regions and the region of grassland deterioration and then indicates the differences between them in time matching, space matching and concept matching.