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Differential allocation of carbon in fenced and clipped grasslands: a 13C tracer study in the semiarid Chinese Loess Plateau

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Abstract

Aims

The objectives of this study were to determine the partitioning pattern of recently fixed carbon in a plant-soil system and the difference in patterns of carbon flux between fenced and clipped grasslands in the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP).

Methods

We used an in situ 13C pulse labeling method and determined the plant biomass, carbon content and δ13C value in shoot, root and soil, in order to calculate the 13C amount in the plant-soil system.

Results

Thirty days after labeling, the 13C incorporated into the shoots did not differ significantly between the fenced (30.6 % of recovered 13C) and clipped (27.0 %) grasslands. However, the amount of 13C remaining in the roots and soil in fenced grassland (roots, 9.2 %; soil, 14.7 %) was significantly higher than that in clipped grassland (roots, 2.0 %; soil, 2.5 %). By contrast, the total loss of assimilated 13C was significantly lower in fenced grassland (45.5 %) than that in clipped grassland (68.5 %).

Conclusions

We demonstrate that clipping management results in a higher 13CO2 efflux and a lower 13C allocated belowground, which has a negative effect on carbon sequestration in typical grasslands in the semiarid CLP.

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Acknowledgments

This research was financially supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (41403015, 41373022), the Key Deployment Project from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. KZZD-EW-04-06). We thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments, which significantly improved this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Loess and Quaternary, Institute of Earth Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xi’an, 710061, China

    Jie Wei, Weiguo Liu & Hao Wan

  2. School of Human Settlement and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Weiguo Liu

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Hao Wan

  4. State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water Resources, Yangling, Shaanxi, 712100, China

    Jimin Cheng

  5. Administrative Office of Yunwu Mountain, Guyuan, Ningxia, 756000, China

    Weijun Li

Authors
  1. Jie Wei
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  2. Weiguo Liu
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  3. Hao Wan
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  4. Jimin Cheng
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Correspondence to Jie Wei.

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Responsible Editor: Eric Paterson.

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Wei, J., Liu, W., Wan, H. et al. Differential allocation of carbon in fenced and clipped grasslands: a 13C tracer study in the semiarid Chinese Loess Plateau. Plant Soil 406, 251–263 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-016-2879-0

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