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Variability and controls of soil CO2 fluxes under different tillage and crop residue managements in a wheat-maize double-cropping system

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Abstract

The spatial and temporal variability of soil CO2 emissions from agricultural soils is inherently high. While tillage and crop residue practices play vital roles in governing soil CO2 emission, their effects on the variability of soil CO2 fluxes across depths and seasons are still poorly understood. To address this, an experiment consisting of four treatments, namely conventional tillage with (CT+) and without crop residue application (CT−), as well as no tillage with (NT+) and without crop residue application (NT−), was conducted to investigate soil CO2 fluxes at top 40 cm soils with 10-cm depth intervals in a winter wheat-summer maize rotation system in the North China Plain. Our results showed soil CO2 fluxes increased with depth in both the wheat- and maize-growing seasons. However, the dominant factors in regulating soil CO2 fluxes changed with soil depth and seasons. In the wheat-growing season, increase in soil CO2 fluxes with depth was attributed to the increase of dissolved organic carbon-to-nitrogen ratio (DOC/DON) and a decline in soil DON concentration along the soil profile. These factors explained about 55–96% of the total variation in soil CO2 fluxes at different soil depths. In the maize-growing season, the dominant factors were soil DOC/DON ratio, soil DON concentrations, and soil moisture. These factors explained approximately 79–96% of the total variation in soil CO2 fluxes along the soil depth. Greater soil CO2 fluxes (except at 30–40 cm depth) were observed in NT− than CT− treatments. Furthermore, crop residue application enhanced soil CO2 fluxes across different depths, but the enhancement was more prominent in CT+ than NT+. Moreover, soil CO2 fluxes in the maize-growing season were greater than those in the wheat-growing season. Our results demonstrate that the effects of tillage regimes and crop residue management practices on soil CO2 emissions are not confined only to the plough layer but can extend to soils of over 30 cm depths. We also need to revisit the general conventional view that no tillage can significantly reduce soil CO2 emissions compared with conventional tillage for better climate change mitigation.

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Funding

This work was funded by the National Natural Sciences Foundation of China (grant number 31271675, 41703066), the Provincial Natural Sciences Foundation of Fujian (grant number 2018 J05047, JAT170188), and the Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant number Y821161001-DE2018025).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Forest Ecology Stable Isotope Center, College of Forest, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou, 350002, China

    Qingyan Qiu, Yalin Hu & Abubakari Said Mgelwa

  2. Yucheng Comprehensive Experiment Station, Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 11A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing, 100101, China

    Qingyan Qiu, Lanfang Wu, Yanyan Xu & Binbin Li

  3. Department of Geography and Resource Management, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Derrick Yuk Fo Lai

  4. Key Laboratory of Humid Subtropical Eco-geographical Process, Ministry of Education, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350007, China

    Weiqi Wang

  5. College of Natural Resources Management and Tourism, Mwalimu Julius K. Nyerere University of Agriculture and Technology, P.O. Box 976, Musoma, Tanzania

    Abubakari Said Mgelwa

  6. Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110164, Liaoning, People’s Republic of China

    Abubakari Said Mgelwa

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  1. Qingyan Qiu
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  2. Lanfang Wu
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Correspondence to Lanfang Wu.

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Qiu, Q., Wu, L., Hu, Y. et al. Variability and controls of soil CO2 fluxes under different tillage and crop residue managements in a wheat-maize double-cropping system. Environ Sci Pollut Res 27, 45722–45736 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-10437-4

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