Warming impacts on carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus distribution in soil water-stable aggregates

A five-year (2010–2015) field experiment was conducted to investigate warming impacts on organic carbon (OC), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) contents and their ratios in bulk soil and soil water-stable aggregates in an alpine meadow of the Tibetan Plateau. Compared with unwarmed contr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plant, soil and environment soil and environment, 2018-01, Vol.64 (2), p.64-69
Main Authors: GUAN, Song, AN, Na, LIU, Jinhua, ZONG, Ning, HE, Yongtao, SHI, Peili, ZHANG, Jinjing, HE, Nianpeng
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aggregates
Clay
Climate change
grassland ecosystem
Moisture content
Nitrogen
open top chambers
Organic carbon
Organic phosphorus
Phosphorus
Silt
Soil aggregates
soil nutrient
soil structure
Soil water
stoichiometry
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Summary:A five-year (2010–2015) field experiment was conducted to investigate warming impacts on organic carbon (OC), total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) contents and their ratios in bulk soil and soil water-stable aggregates in an alpine meadow of the Tibetan Plateau. Compared with unwarmed control, warming had no significant effects on OC, TN and TP contents and their ratios in bulk soil. The contents of OC, TN and TP associated with macroaggregates and microaggregates decreased, whereas those associated with silt + clay fractions significantly increased. The C:N and C:P ratios in macro- and microaggregates and silt + clay fractions decreased, with significant differences for C:P ratio in microaggregates and C:N and C:P ratios in silt + clay fractions. The results indicated that C, N and P were protected chemically in silt- and clay-size fractions under warming, which offset the loss of C, N and P protected physically by macro- and microaggregates. Both physically and chemically protected C decomposition proceeded relatively more rapidly or accumulated relatively more slowly than did N and P. Our results suggest that C, N and P distributions within soil aggregate size fractions influence their net changes in bulk soil under future climate change scenarios.
ISSN:1214-1178
1805-9368
DOI:10.17221/715/2017-PSE