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Responses of switchgrass soil respiration and its components to precipitation gradient in a mesocosm study

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Abstract

Aims

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of the precipitation changes on soil, microbial and root respirations of switchgrass soils, and the relationships between soil respiration and plant growth, soil moisture and temperature.

Methods

A mesocosm experiment was conducted with five precipitation treatments over two years in a greenhouse in Nashville, Tennessee. The treatments included ambient precipitation, −50%, −33%, +33% and +50% of ambient precipitation. Soil, microbial, and root respirations were quantified during the growing seasons.

Results

Mean soil and root respirations in the +50% treatment were the highest (2.48 and 0.93 μmol CO2 m−2 s−1, respectively) among all treatments. Soil microbial respiration contributed more to soil respiration, and had higher precipitation sensitivity mostly than root respiration. Increases in precipitation mostly enhanced microbial respiration while decreases in precipitation reduced both microbial and root respirations. Across precipitation treatments, soil respiration was significantly influenced by soil moisture, soil temperature, and aboveground biomass.

Conclusions

Our results showed that microbial respiration was more sensitive to precipitation changes, and precipitation regulated the response of soil respiration to soil temperature. The information generated in this study will be useful for model simulation of soil respiration in switchgrass fields under precipitation changes.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Dr. Roger Sauve for his assistant in establishing the precipitation facility, Eddie Williams for his help in soil preparation, Dr. Xuefeng Liu and three reviewers whose comments have significantly improved the manuscript. We gratefully acknowledge financial support for this research from USDA- Capacity Building Grant and Evans-Allen grant, National Science Foundation (1504886, 1623085), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (31428001). The Li-Cor Photosynthesis System was purchased with the support of NSF grant and Li-Cor LEEF package. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN, USA

    Chih-Li Yu, Dafeng Hui & Qi Deng

  2. Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, Tennessee State University, Nashville, TN, USA

    E. Kudjo Dzantor

  3. USDA-ARS Grassland Soil and Water Research Laboratory, Temple, TX, USA

    Philip A. Fay

  4. Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management, South China Botanical Garden, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

    Weijun Shen

  5. Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, USA

    Yiqi Luo

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  1. Chih-Li Yu
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  2. Dafeng Hui
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  3. Qi Deng
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  4. E. Kudjo Dzantor
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  5. Philip A. Fay
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Correspondence to Dafeng Hui.

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Responsible Editor: Elizabeth M Baggs.

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Yu, CL., Hui, D., Deng, Q. et al. Responses of switchgrass soil respiration and its components to precipitation gradient in a mesocosm study. Plant Soil 420, 105–117 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-017-3370-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-017-3370-2

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