Influence of soil faunal properties and understory fine root on soil organic carbon in a “mesh bag” approach

The obstruction of fine mesh bag has been widely applied to study the functions of plant fine roots and soil fauna in ecosystems. However, plant fine roots and soil fauna can both be either excluded from the soil within fine mesh bags or admitted into the soil without mesh bags or within coarse mesh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of soil biology 2016-09, Vol.76, p.19-25
Main Authors: Cui, Yang, Wang, Silong, Yan, Shaokui
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Boosting regression tree
Carbon
Diversity
Mesh net
Soil animal
Undergrowth plant
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Summary:The obstruction of fine mesh bag has been widely applied to study the functions of plant fine roots and soil fauna in ecosystems. However, plant fine roots and soil fauna can both be either excluded from the soil within fine mesh bags or admitted into the soil without mesh bags or within coarse mesh bags, because of their similar ranges of body width. As a result, both their effects could be influenced by fine mesh bags. In this study, we investigated the effects of soil fauna and understory fine roots on soil organic carbon, with a special type of fine mesh bags designed for obstructing the growth of understory fine roots into soil with free access of soil fauna. Results showed that both the biomass of understory fine roots and soil faunal diversity along with soil total carbon and microbial biomass carbon were significantly reduced by the fine mesh bags (P 
ISSN:1164-5563
DOI:10.1016/j.ejsobi.2016.06.005