Journal
CATENA
Volume 185, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.catena.2019.104332
Keywords
Carbon sequestration; Nitrogen fertilization; Plant C and N content; Plant functional group; Soil aggregation; Temperate grassland
Funding
- Duolun Restoration Ecology Station of the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [31600380, 41671283, 31670477, 31570429]
- National Key Research and Development Program of China [2016YFC0501706-02]
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Grasslands, mostly in arid and semiarid regions, play an important role in regulating the dynamics of global terrestrial carbon (C) exchange. However, findings about how global changes affect ecosystem C sequestration are conflicting. To understand how land use and climate change affect ecosystem C and nitrogen (N) pools, this study investigated the effects of mowing and fertilizer on the C and N pools of plants and soil, and on the aggregate-associated C and N content, by means of a field manipulating experiment established in August 2012 in a typical steppe. The results showed that mowing significantly decreased the mass and the C and N pools of shoots by 14.3%, 17.3% and 12.1%, respectively. Compared to ambient N treatments, N addition stimulated shoot biomass and litter mass by 28.8% and 77.4%, respectively, but had no affect on root biomass. Simultaneously, N addition increased the plant N content and the N pools, and it decreased the ratio of plant C to N in the shoots, litter and roots. However, neither mowing nor N addition affected the proportion of macroaggregate, microaggregate, < 0.053 mm size class, geometric mean diameter or aggregate-associated C and N contents. Nitrogen deposition under conditions of climate change stimulated plant productivity but had no affect on soil C sequestration in this short-term experiment. Our results indicate that mowing may be beneficial for providing food for large mammals, but it did not affect soil C and N pools in the study region. Our findings suggest that the response of plant mass and C pools is more sensitive than that of soil C sequestration and soil texture to mowing and N deposition in the temperate steppes of the Mongolian Plateau.
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