Soil respiration under three different land use types in a tropical mountain region of China

Soil respiration (SR) Wis one of the largest contributors of terrestrial CO_2 to the atmosphere.Environmental as well as physicochemical parameters influence SR and thus, different land use practices impact the emissions of soil CO_2. In this study, we measured SR, bi-monthly, over a one-year period in a terrace tea plantation, a forest tea plantation and a secondary forest, in a subtropical mountain area in Xishuangbanna, China. Along with the measurement of SR rates, soil characteristics for each of the land use systems were investigated. Soil respiration rates in the different land use systems did not differ significantly during the dry season, ranging from2.7±0.2 μmol m^(-2) s^(-1) to 2.8±0.2 μmol m^(-2) s^(-1). During the wet season, however, SR rates were significantly larger in the terrace tea plantation(5.4±0.5 μmol m^(-2)s^(-1)) and secondary forest(4.9±0.4 μmol m^(-2)s^(-1)) than in the forest tea plantation(3.7±0.2 μmol m^(-2) s^(-1)).This resulted in significantly larger annual soil CO_2 emissions from the terrace tea and secondary forest,than from the forest tea plantation. It is likely that these differences in the SR rates are due to the 0.5times lower soil organic carbon concentrations in thetop mineral soil in the forest tea plantation, compared to the terrace tea plantation and secondary forest.Furthermore, we suggest that the lower sensitivity to temperature variation in the forest tea soil is a result of the lower soil organic carbon concentrations. The higher SR rates in the terrace tea plantation were partly due to weeding events, which caused CO_2 emission peaks that contributed almost 10% to the annual CO_2 flux. Our findings suggest that moving away from heavily managed tea plantations towards low-input forest tea can reduce the soil CO_2 emissions from these systems. However, our study is a casestudy and further investigations and upscaling are necessary to show if these findings hold true at a landscape level.

Effects of Temperature and Moisture on Soil Organic Matter Decomposition Along Elevation Gradients on the Changbai Mountains, Northeast China

Decomposition of soil organic matter(SOM) is of importance for CO_2 exchange between soil and atmosphere and soil temperature and moisture are considered as two important factors controlling SOM decomposition. In this study, soil samples were collected at 5 elevations ranging from 753 to 2 357 m on the Changbai Mountains in Northeast China, and incubated under different temperatures(5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30?C) and soil moisture levels(30%, 60%, and 90% of saturated soil moisture) to investigate the effects of both on SOM decomposition and its temperature sensitivity at different elevations. The results showed that incubation temperature(F = 1 425.10, P < 0.001), soil moisture(F = 1 327.65, P < 0.001), and elevation(F = 1 937.54, P < 0.001) all had significant influences on the decomposition rate of SOM. The significant effect of the interaction of incubation temperature and soil moisture on the SOM decomposition rate was observed at all the 5 sampling elevations(P < 0.001). A two-factor model that used temperature and moisture as variables fitted the SOM decomposition rate well(P < 0.001) and could explain 80%–93% of the variation of SOM decomposition rate at the 5 elevations. Temperature sensitivity of SOM decomposition, expressed as the change of SOM decomposition rate in response to a 10?C increase in temperature(Q_(10)), was significantly different among the different elevations(P < 0.01), but no apparent trend with elevation was discernible. In addition, soil moisture and incubation temperature both had great impacts on the Q_(10) value(P < 0.01), which increased significantly with increasing soil moisture or incubation temperature. Furthermore, the SOM decomposition rate was significantly related to soil total Gram-positive bacteria(R^2= 0.33, P < 0.01) and total Gram-negative bacteria(R^2= 0.58, P < 0.001). These findings highlight the importance of soil moisture to SOM decomposition and its Q_(10) value,which needs to be emphasized under warming climate scenarios.