Variations of soil organic carbon fractions in response to conservative vegetation successions on the Loess Plateau of China

Land use changes profoundly affect the equilibrium of soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions. With the current global climatic changes, it is vital to understand the influ-ence of ecological restoration and conservation management on the dynamics of SOC under different land uses, especially in erosion-endangered Loess soils. Therefore, we investigated changes in SOC through a suit of labile fractions, namely: light fraction organic C (LFOC), heavy fraction organic C (HFOC), coarse particulate organic C (CPOC), fine particulate organic C (FPOC), and dissolved organic C (DOC), from two forests i.e., Robinia pseudoacacia (RP) and Platycladus orientalis (PO), with different ages, in comparison with farmland (FL). The SOC and STN contents significantly increased over 42 years in the RP forest where the contents of CPOC and FPOC were significantly higher than in the FL. Moreover, total SOC and its labile fractions, in the studied land use types, significantly correlated with soil CaCO3, pH, and STN contents, indicating their key roles in SOC sequestration. The results reported here from different vegetation with different ages provide a better understanding of SOC and STN alterations at different stages of vegetation restoration. Our findings suggest that long-term natural vegetation restoration could be an effective approach for SOC sequestration and soil conservation on the Loess soil.& COPY; 2022 International Research and Training Center on Erosion and Sedimentation, China Water and Power Press, and China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co. Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Automated summary

Land use changes have significant impacts on soil organic carbon (SOC) sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions. This study examined the influence of ecological restoration and conservation management on SOC dynamics in erosion-endangered Loess soils. Results showed that SOC and its labile fractions increased significantly over 42 years in a Robinia pseudoacacia forest compared to farmland, indicating the effectiveness of long-term natural vegetation restoration for SOC sequestration and soil conservation.