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Soil organic carbon storage and soil CO2 flux in the alpine meadow ecosystem

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Abstract

High-resolution sampling, measurements of organic carbon contents and 14C signatures of selected four soil profiles in the Haibei Station situated on the northeast Tibetan Plateau, and application of 14C tracing technology were conducted in an attempt to investigate the turnover times of soil organic carbon and the soil-CO2 flux in the alpine meadow ecosystem. The results show that the organic carbon stored in the soils varies from 22.12×104 kg C hm−2 to 30.75×104 kg C hm−2 in the alpine meadow ecosystems, with an average of 26.86×104 kg C hm−2. Turnover times of organic carbon pools increase with depth from 45 a to 73 a in the surface soil horizon to hundreds of years or millennia or even longer at the deep soil horizons in the alpine meadow ecosystems. The soil-CO2 flux ranges from 103.24 g C m−2 a−1 to 254.93 gC m−2 a−1, with an average of 191.23 g C m−2 a−1. The CO2 efflux produced from microbial decomposition of organic matter varies from 73.3 g C m−2 a−1 to 181 g C m−2 a−1. More than 30% of total soil organic carbon resides in the active carbon pool and 72.8%281.23% of total CO2 emitted from organic matter decomposition results from the topsoil horizon (from 0 cm to 10 cm) for the Kobresia meadow. Responding to global warming, the storage, volume of flow and fate of the soil organic carbon in the alpine meadow ecosystem of the Tibetan Plateau will be changed, which needs further research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography and Planning, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275, China

    Tao Zhen & Gao QuanZhou

  2. Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Tao Zhen, Shen ChengDe, Sun YanMin & Yi WeiXi

  3. Northwest Plateau Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, 810001, China

    Li YingNian

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  1. Tao Zhen
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  2. Shen ChengDe
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  3. Gao QuanZhou
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  4. Sun YanMin
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  6. Li YingNian
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Correspondence to Tao Zhen.

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Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40231015, 40471120 and 40473002) and the Guangdong Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 06300102)

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Tao, Z., Shen, C., Gao, Q. et al. Soil organic carbon storage and soil CO2 flux in the alpine meadow ecosystem. SCI CHINA SER D 50, 1103–1114 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-007-0055-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-007-0055-3

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