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Nitrogen fertilization decrease soil CO2 emission in a rainfed maize field in Northeast China

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Abstract

Nitrogen fertilizer has considerable effects on soil carbon fluxes. However, the responses of soil CO2 emission to N fertilizer remain controversial. A field experiment was conducted to examine the effect of application of N fertilizer on soil CO2 emission in a maize (Zea mays L.) field in Northeast China. Soil CO2 emission was measured from May 2010 to April 2016. Soil CO2 emission during the growing season and non-growing season contributed 79.7–83.6% and 16.4–20.3%, respectively, to the total annual CO2 emission. Cumulative annual soil CO2 emissions were significantly higher in no-N addition treatment (CK) than that in N addition treatment (SU) from 2012/2013 to 2015/2016 (p < 0.05). Mean annual soil CO2 emission decreased on averaged by 21.2% after N fertilization (p < 0.05). 49.6–82.2% of CO2 flux variation was explained by soil temperature at 5 cm depth. Q10 of soil CO2 emission in the annual scale was not significantly affected by N fertilizer. The results highlight the importance of N fertilizer on soil CO2 emission in agricultural ecosystem.

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Funding

This study was financially supported by the Non-Profit Research Foundation for Agriculture (201103039), National Key Research and Development Program of China (2020YFA0907800), Open Research Project of Shouguang Facilities Agriculture Center in Institute of Applied Ecology (2018SG-S-02), the Natural Science Research Programme of Huai’an (HAB202055), and Huai’an Excellent Youth Science Foundation and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42107348).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Regional Modern Agriculture and Environmental Protection/Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Eco-Agriculture Biotechnology Around Hongze Lake, Huaiyin Normal University, 223300, Huai’an, China

    Dan Dong

  2. Key Laboratory of Pollution Ecology and Environmental Engineering, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110016, China

    Dan Dong, Weichao Yang, Hao Sun, Shuang Kong & Hui Xu

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  1. Dan Dong
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  2. Weichao Yang
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  3. Hao Sun
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  4. Shuang Kong
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  5. Hui Xu
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Contributions

Dan Dong: writing of draft, visualization, and funding acquisition; Weichao Yang: supervision, reviewing and editing; Hao Sun: methodology; Shuang Kong: visualization editing; Hui Xu: investigation and funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Weichao Yang.

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Dong, D., Yang, W., Sun, H. et al. Nitrogen fertilization decrease soil CO2 emission in a rainfed maize field in Northeast China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 81256–81264 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-21502-5

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