Relationships between soil organic matter pools and nitrous oxide emissions of agroecosystems in the Brazilian Cerrado

In the Brazilian Cerrado, despite the increasing adoption of no-till systems, there are still extended areas under conventional soil management systems that reduce soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) stocks and increase the emissions of greenhouse gases, such as nitrous oxide (N2O). Conservation agroecosystems, such as no-till, have been proposed as a strategy to mitigate agriculture-induced climatic changes through reductions in N2O emissions. However, the relationship between organic matter and N2O emissions from soils under different agroecosystems is not yet clear. This study hypothesized that agroecosystems under no-till promote an accumulation of labile and stable SOM fractions along with a reduction of N2O emissions. This study evaluated the effects of crop-rotation agroecosystems: i) on C and N pools and labile and stable SOM fractions; ii) on cumulative N2O emissions; and iii) on the relationships between SOM fractions and N2O emissions. The agricultural systems consisted of: (I) soybean followed by sorghum under no-tillage (NT1); (II) maize followed by pigeon pea under no-tillage (NT2); (III) soybean under conventional tillage followed by fallow soil (CT); (IV) and native Cerrado (CER). After CT for 18 years, following the replacement of CER, the soil C stock in the 0-20 cm layer was reduced by 0.64 t ha(-1) year(-1). The no-till systems were more efficient in accumulating labile and stable C fractions with values close to those observed under CER, and were directly related to lower soil N2O emissions. The cumulative pattern of N2O emissions was inverse to that of the following SOM fractions: microbial biomass carbon, permanganate-oxidizable carbon, particulate organic carbon, inert carbon, and humic substances. Based on principal component analysis, the CT was generally separated from the other land use systems. This separation was strongly influenced by the low C contents in the different SOM fractions and higher N2O emissions promoted by the CT. (c) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.