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Indirect effects of experimental warming on dissolved organic carbon content in subsurface peat

  • SOILS, SEC 1 • SOIL ORGANIC MATTER DYNAMICS AND NUTRIENT CYCLING • RESEARCH ARTICLE
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose

The peatland carbon store is threatened by climate change and is expected to provide positive feedback on air temperature. Most studies indicate that enhanced temperature and microbial activities result in a rise of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) as a consequence of higher peat decomposition. Few of them, however, have investigated the impact of in situ experimental warming on DOC response.

Material and methods

We studied the response of DOC, dissolved organic nitrogen (DON), phenol oxidase, and fluorescein diacetate activities (FDA) to a 3-year in situ experimental warming using open-top chambers (OTCs) in a Sphagnum-dominated peatland.

Results and discussion

No significant warming of soil was recorded, implying that the simultaneous decrease in DOC and DON and the rise in FDA at the depths of 25 and 40 cm were not caused by the direct effect of OTCs on water temperature, but might instead have been mediated by plant root exudates. The water chemistry suggests that DOC production was compensated by in situ mineralization. We hypothesize that an increased hydrolysis of organic matter (OM) was counterbalanced by the mineralization of dissolved organic matter (DOM) and that microorganisms preferentially used labile compounds originating from increased root exudates.

Conclusions

This trade-off between production of DOC through hydrolysis and consumption in the process of mineralization shows (1) the limitation of using only DOC as an indicator of the sensitivity of peat decomposition to climate warming and (2) the need to improve our understanding of the indirect impact of root exudates.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded as part of the PEATWARM research initiative through an ANR (French National Agency for Research) grant (ANR-07-VUL-010). This paper is a contribution to the research conducted in the Labex VOLTAIRE (ANR-10-LABX-100-01). The authors are also indebted to the Regional Scientific Council of Natural Heritage of the Franche-Comté Region for permitting access to Le Forbonnet site. The authors are grateful to E Rowley-Jolivet for revision of the English version. The authors also thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

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Author notes

  1. Frédéric Delarue

    Present address: Laboratoire de Minéralogie et de Cosmochimie du Muséum, UMR 7202 CNRS, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 57 rue Cuvier, 75231, Paris CEDEX 05, France

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université d’Orléans, ISTO, UMR 7327, 45071, Orléans, France

    Frédéric Delarue, Sébastien Gogo & Fatima Laggoun-Défarge

  2. CNRS, ISTO, UMR 7327, 45071, Orléans, France

    Frédéric Delarue, Sébastien Gogo & Fatima Laggoun-Défarge

  3. BRGM, ISTO, UMR 7327, BP 36009, 45060, Orléans, France

    Frédéric Delarue, Sébastien Gogo & Fatima Laggoun-Défarge

  4. Laboratoire de Chrono-Environnement, UMR CNRS 6249, UFR des Sciences et Techniques Université de Franche-Comté, 16 route de Gray, 25030, Besançon, France

    Alexandre Buttler & Grégory Bernard

  5. Laboratory of Ecological Systems (ECOS), School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering (ENAC), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Station 2, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Alexandre Buttler, Luca Bragazza, Vincent E. J. Jassey & Grégory Bernard

  6. WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Site Lausanne, Station 2, 1015, Lausanne, Switzerland

    Alexandre Buttler, Luca Bragazza, Vincent E. J. Jassey & Grégory Bernard

  7. Department of Life Science and Biotechnologies, University of Ferrara, Corso Ercole I d’Este 32, 44121, Ferrara, Italy

    Luca Bragazza

Authors
  1. Frédéric Delarue
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  2. Sébastien Gogo
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  3. Alexandre Buttler
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  4. Luca Bragazza
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  5. Vincent E. J. Jassey
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  6. Grégory Bernard
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  7. Fatima Laggoun-Défarge
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Frédéric Delarue.

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Responsible editor: Zucong Cai

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Delarue, F., Gogo, S., Buttler, A. et al. Indirect effects of experimental warming on dissolved organic carbon content in subsurface peat. J Soils Sediments 14, 1800–1805 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-014-0945-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11368-014-0945-x

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