Temporal and spatial variations in the mean residence time of soil organic carbon and their relationship with climatic, soil and vegetation drivers

Although efforts to understand the drivers of the soil organic carbon (SOC) in terrestrial ecosystems have paid off, little is known about the temporal and spatial variations in the mean residence time (MRT) of SOC and how MRT varies with the climatic, soil, and vegetation drivers. In this study, th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Global and planetary change 2020-12, Vol.195, p.103359, Article 103359
Main Authors: Chen, Shutao, Zou, Jianwen, Hu, Zhenghua, Lu, Yanyu
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Mean residence time
Precipitation
Soil
Soil organic carbon
Temperature
Vegetation
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Summary:Although efforts to understand the drivers of the soil organic carbon (SOC) in terrestrial ecosystems have paid off, little is known about the temporal and spatial variations in the mean residence time (MRT) of SOC and how MRT varies with the climatic, soil, and vegetation drivers. In this study, the MRT of SOC from 1376 samples of the 0–20 cm soil layer from the main global biomes was derived based on the simultaneously measured SOC pool and soil carbon fluxes. We also evaluated the factors controlling the variations in the MRT of SOC. The results indicate that, across the different biomes, the MRT of SOC (ranging from 0.47 to 56.75 yr) exhibits large variations at the global scale and shows strong quadratic relationship with latitude. The MRT of SOC exhibits a significant and negative trend from the 1980s to the 2010s. The MRT of SOC shows strong negative and nonlinear relationships (P 
ISSN:0921-8181
1872-6364
DOI:10.1016/j.gloplacha.2020.103359