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Carbon storage under different grazing management in the typical steppe

  • Degradation, Rehabilitation, and Conservation of Soils
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Abstract

Understanding the carbon storage is necessary to understand how grassland ecosystems would respond to natural and anthropogenic disturbances under different management strategies. Carbon storage was investigated in aboveground biomass, litter, roots and soil organic matter (SOM) in eight sites that were floristically and topographically similar, but had been subjected to different years of grazing exclusion and different grazing intensities. The primary objective of this study was to ascertain the effect of different grazing management regimes on carbon storage in the typical steppe ecosystem of China. The results revealed that the total carbon stored in aboveground biomass, litter, roots and SOM (the top 100cm soil layer) varied from 9.29 to 18.51 kg m2. Over 94% of the carbon stored in the SOM, with minor storage in other pools. Soil carbon storage decreased substantially with grazing intensity and the six years of grazing exclusion had a higher storage than 32 and 15 years grazing exclusion. The carbon storage trend observed in these treatments suggests that moderate grazing as well as mowing can improve the carbon sequestration and the longer fencing year is not better for carbon accumulation of typical steppe in China.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eurasian Temperate Steppe Research Center of Grassland Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Science, Hohhot, Inner Mongolia, PR China

    Sarula, Haijun Chen, Xiangyang Hou, Xinhong Wu, Weibo Ren & Yong Ding

  2. The Institute of General and Experimental Biology, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Ulan-ude, Buryat Republic, Russia

    Leonid Ubugunov & Oksana Vishnyakova

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  1. Sarula
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  2. Haijun Chen
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  3. Xiangyang Hou
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Correspondence to Xiangyang Hou.

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Original Russian Text © Sarula, Haijun Chen, Xiangyang Hou, Leonid Ubugunov, Oksana Vishnyakova, Xinhong Wu, Weibo Ren, Yong Ding, 2014, published in Pochvovedenie, 2014, No. 11, pp. 1365–1374.

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Sarula, Chen, H., Hou, X. et al. Carbon storage under different grazing management in the typical steppe. Eurasian Soil Sc. 47, 1152–1160 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1064229314110106

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