Response of soil organic carbon to land-use change in central Brazil: a large-scale comparison of Ferralsols and Acrisols

Background and aims The southeastern part of the Amazon region is one of the largest agricultural frontiers in the world, leading to extensive land-use change. This paper provides evidence for the impacts of land-use change on soil organic carbon (OC) stocks along a large scale for Ferralsols and Ac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Plant and soil 2016-11, Vol.408 (1/2), p.327-342
Main Authors: Strey, S., Boy, J., Strey, R., Weber, O., Guggenberger, G.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Agricultural production
Agricultural soils
Agrology
Biomedical and Life Sciences
Brazil
Carbon content
Carbon cycle
Clay soils
Climate change
Ecology
Environmental aspects
Environmental impact analysis
Forest soils
Land use
Life Sciences
Methods
Organic carbon
Organic soils
Pasture
Pastures
Plant Physiology
Plant Sciences
Regular Article
Soil depth
Soil organic carbon
Soil organic matter
Soil Science & Conservation
Soils
Stable isotopes
Subsoils
Vegetation
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Summary:Background and aims The southeastern part of the Amazon region is one of the largest agricultural frontiers in the world, leading to extensive land-use change. This paper provides evidence for the impacts of land-use change on soil organic carbon (OC) stocks along a large scale for Ferralsols and Acrisols including subsoil. Methods We took soil samples to 100 cm depth for native vegetation, pasture and crop-field along a 1000 km agricultural transect in central Brazil to determine OC stocks and, by using a stable isotope approach, losses of forest-derived OC. Results At the scale of individual plots, soil OC stocks indicate a highly heterogeneous response to land-use change (e.g. in Ferralsols in 0-30 cm from -45 % to +57 % Mg OC ha⁻¹ after conversion to pasture), but relatively minor responses when considering the complete transect (i.e. no significant OC changes for similar land-use type). Acrisols evidenced a slower decline of forest-derived and OC simultaneously a faster accumulation of pasture-derived OC than Ferralsols. Surprisingly, the impact of land-use change was more pronounced in the subsoil. Conclusion Our results emphasize the role of subsoils on carbon cycling which has been previously underestimated, but may also raise doubts whether OC stocks in soil is an appropriate parameter to assess the impacts of land-use conversion on climate change.
ISSN:0032-079X
1573-5036
DOI:10.1007/s11104-016-2901-6