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Journal of Integrative Agriculture  2016, Vol. 15 Issue (06): 1376-1384    DOI: 10.1016/S2095-3119(15)61222-9
Special Issue: 食品科学合辑Food Science
Soil & Fertilization﹒Irrigation﹒Plant Nutrition﹒ Agro-Ecology & Environment Advanced Online Publication | Current Issue | Archive | Adv Search |
Responses of soil microbial respiration to plantations depend on soil properties in subtropical China
ZHANG Yan-jie1, YAN Yue1, FU Xiang-ping2, YANG Jie3, ZHANG Su-yan1, XU Shan4, TANG Zheng5, LI Zhong-fang5, LU Shun-bao1, 4
1 Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry of Education/Jiangxi Province Key Laboratory of Protection and Utilization of Subtropical Plant Resources/College of Life Sciences, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330022, P.R.China
2 College of Foreign Languages, Jiangxi Agricultural University, Nanchang 330022, P.R.China
3 Jiangxi Research Institute for Soil and Water Conservation, Nanchang 330029, P.R.China
4 State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change/Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, P.R.China
5 College of Chemistryand Bioengineering, Hezhou University, Hezhou 542899, P.R.China
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Abstract     Assessing the impact of plantation on microbial respiration (MR) is vitally important to understand the interactions between belowground metabolism and land use change. In this study, cumulative MR was determined by alkali absorption method in 1, 3, 7, 14, 21, 28, 35, 42, 49, and 56 days from the soil in a representative plantations in the subtropical region of China. The treatment of plantations contained no plant (CK), orange trees (Citrus reticulata)+Bahia grass (Paspalum notatum) (GB), orange trees (C. reticulata)+Bahia grass (P. notatum)+soybean (Giycine max (L.) Merrill) (GBH). Results showed that plantation had significant effects on microbial respiration and the responses of microbial respiration to plantation from different soil layers and topographies were different: in 0–20 cm in uphill: GB>GBH>CK; in 20–40 cm in uphill: GBH>CK>GB; in 0–20 cm in downhill: GBH>CK>GB; in 20–40 cm in downhill: GB>CK>GBH. Furthermore, plantation also altered the relationships between MR and soil properties. In CK, microbial respiration was positively correlated with NH4+ and soil total N, and negatively correlated with soil moisture, pH, NO3, and microbial biomass carbon (MBC). In GB, microbial respiration under GB significantly negatively correlated with dissolved organic carbon (DOC). In GBH, microbial respiration under GBH was positively correlated with NH4+, MBC, total soil carbon (TC), and total soil nitrogen (TN), and negatively correlated with soil moisture (SM), pH, NO3, and DOC. The underlying mechanisms could be attributed to soil heterogeneity and the effects of plantation on soil properties. Our results also showed that plantation significantly increased soil C storage, which suggested plantation is a key measure to enhance soil C sequestration and mitigate global CO2 emission, especially for the soil with low initial soil carbon content or bared soil.  
Keywords:  soil microbial respiration        plantation        soil properties        subtropical forest  
Received: 29 May 2015   Accepted:
Fund: 

The work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31360136, 31560168), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2013M541080, 2014T70139), the Key Laboratory of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research, Ministry of Education, China (PK2014009), the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangxi Province, China (20151BAB204007), and the Open Foundation of Jiangxi Province Key Lab of Protection and Utilization of Subtropical Plant Resources, China.

Corresponding Authors:  LU Shun-bao, Fax: +86-791-88120392, E-mail: luxunbao8012@126.com    

Cite this article: 

ZHANG Yan-jie, YAN Yue, FU Xiang-ping, YANG Jie, ZHANG Su-yan, XU Shan, TANG Zheng, LI Zhong-fang, LU Shun-bao. 2016. Responses of soil microbial respiration to plantations depend on soil properties in subtropical China. Journal of Integrative Agriculture, 15(06): 1376-1384.

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