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Soil carbon dynamics following afforestation of a tropical savannah with Eucalyptus in Congo

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Abstract

Soil organic matter is a key factor in the global carbon cycle, but the magnitude and the direction of the change in soil carbon after afforestation with Eucalyptus in the tropics is still a matter of controversy. The objective of this work was to understand the dynamics of soil carbon in intensively managed Eucalyptus plantations after the afforestation of a native savannah. The isotopic composition (δ) of soil carbon (C) and soil CO2 efflux (F) were measured on a four-age chronosequence of Eucalyptus and on an adjacent savannah. δ F was used to partition F between a C3 component and a C4 component, the latter corresponding to the decomposition of a labile pool of savannah-derived soil carbon (C SL). The mean residence time of CSL was 4.6 years. This further allowed us to partition the savannah-derived soil carbon into a labile and a stable (C SS) carbon pool. C SL accounted for 30% of soil carbon in the top soil of the savannah (0–5 cm), and only 12% when the entire 0–45 cm soil layer was considered. The decrease in C SL with time after plantation was more than compensated by an increase in Eucalyptus-derived carbon, and half of the newly incorporated Eucalyptus-derived carbon in the top soil was associated with the clay and fine silt fractions in the 14-year-old. stand. Increment in soil carbon after afforestation of tropical savannah with Eucalyptus is therefore expected despite a rapid disappearance of the labile savannah-derived carbon because a large fraction of savannah-derived carbon is stable.

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Acknowledgment

This study was funded by the Observatoire de Recherche en Environnement F-ORE-T and the European Integrated Project Ultra Low CO2 Steelmaking (ULCOS—contract no. 515960). The authors are grateful to Claude Bréchet and Christian Hossann (UMR EEF, Nancy) for the mass spectrometry analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Nancy Université, Université Henri Poincaré, Faculté des Sciences, UMR 1137, Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières, 54500, Vandoeuvre les Nancy, France

    Daniel Epron, Claire Marsden & Armel Thongo M’Bou

  2. INRA, UMR 1137, Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières, Centre de Nancy, 54280, Champenoux, France

    Daniel Epron

  3. UR2PI, BP 1291, Pointe-Noire, Republic of Congo

    Claire Marsden, Armel Thongo M’Bou, Rémi d’Annunzio & Yann Nouvellon

  4. CIRAD, UPR-80, Campus de Baillarguet TA 10/D, 34398, Montpellier cedex 5, France

    Claire Marsden, Laurent Saint-André, Rémi d’Annunzio & Yann Nouvellon

  5. UMR INRA UHP ‘Ecologie et Ecophysiologie Forestières’, Université Henri Poincaré, 54506, Vandoeuvre cedex, France

    Daniel Epron

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  1. Daniel Epron
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  2. Claire Marsden
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  3. Armel Thongo M’Bou
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  4. Laurent Saint-André
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  5. Rémi d’Annunzio
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  6. Yann Nouvellon
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Correspondence to Daniel Epron.

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Epron, D., Marsden, C., Thongo M’Bou, A. et al. Soil carbon dynamics following afforestation of a tropical savannah with Eucalyptus in Congo. Plant Soil 323, 309–322 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-009-9939-7

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