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The organic matter in density and particle size fractions of an Andisol and an Inceptisol has been characterised by its C and N contents and infrared spectra. The soils have a similar texture but different clay mineralogy and are under two contrasting land uses represented by pasture and cropping. The Andisol samples were taken from sites which have been under perennial pasture for 100 years and...
About half of the world's wetlands area is found in the tropics. The importance of wetlands to the global carbon cycle, water balance, wildlife, biodiversity and human food production is much greater than their proportional surface area on Earth (7%) would suggest. High net primary production of organic matter produced by retarded decomposition make natural tropical wetlands an important sink for...
Models are used increasingly to predict long-term changes in soil organic matter (SOM). Comparison with measured data is clearly desirable. We compared simulations of the mechanistic ITE (Edinburgh) Forest (EF) and Hurley Pasture (HP) ecosystem models with experimental SOM data from three long-term experiments: a 30 year old pine forest in South Carolina, USA, a 100 year old area of naturally regenerating...
In natural ecosystems, soil organic carbon (C) is derived almost exclusively from the residues of plants growing in situ. In agroecosystems, it has at least two origins: one is the remains from the previous native vegetation, and the other is the remains of the crop and the decomposition of its residues. Where vegetation has changed from plants with the C3 photosynthetic pathway to C4 pathway or vice...
Six samples, selected from a weathering profile developed on a granite in the Panola Mountain Research Watershed in the Georgia Piedmont were studied for their stable carbon isotopic properties. The purpose was to understand the relationship between the stable carbon isotopic composition of the organic matter pool and the preservation of carbon in the authigenic soil minerals. The method for yielding...
This paper describes results from a study of the effects of first rotation radiata pine (Pinus radiata) on major organic constituents (carbon, nitrogen and sulfur) in hill country pasture soils in New Zealand. Soil properties were compared under 17-19-year-old radiata pine and adjacent pasture at four sites on the boundary of a 9000-ha forest. No fertiliser had been applied to either forest or pasture...
A combined investigation of soil and streamwater chemistry was carried in Dicksonland (Svalbard) with the aim of identifying the key biogeochemical controls on element cycling in this young recently glaciated environment in the High Arctic. The study comprises three parts: (1) a large-scale investigation of spatial variability in streamwater chemistry; (2) an assessment of streamwater, soil and soil...
How has soil quality changed in California over the past 60 years? Using the known locations of archived samples collected by the soil survey staff in the 1940s and 1950s, we resampled 125 locations in California from the Imperial Valley in the south to Tehama county in the north and analyzed samples for properties important to plant production. We collected three samples from the 0- to 25-cm depth...
In this review, technical and economically viable potentials for carbon sequestration in the agricultural soils of Europe by 2008-2012 are analysed against a business-as-usual scenario. We provide a quantitative estimation of the carbon absorption potential per hectare and the surface of agricultural land that is available and suitable for the implementation of those measures, their environmental...
Mesquite trees in desert grasslands create localized distributions of soil N, C, and P, through N fixation, nutrient uptake, and subsequent litterfall. Fires may prevent or reverse this accumulation, but the results of this process are poorly understood. Our objectives were to (1) characterize temporal and spatial variation in velvet mesquite litter mass and C, N, and P concentration; (2) characterize...
Bulk soil samples (BS) (n=120) from long-term tillage experiments and areas covered by secondary natural forest were collected in the Brazilian savanna region (Cerrado) at Santo Antônio de Goiás, and southern Atlantic forest region at Londrina. Bulk soils were separated into 8 aggregate size fractions (ASF) by wet sieving (n=700). Bulk soil samples (BS) and ASF were analyzed for total C, N by dry...
Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) is a rapid and low-cost method that has been reported to provide accurate prediction of soil total carbon (Ct) and nitrogen (Nt) contents. However, methodological aspects such as sample preparation and set homogeneity have not been addressed extensively. The main objective of the paper was to assess how NIRS determination of Ct and Nt was affected by sample...
Based on satellite imagery for 1988 and 2001, land-use cover change and associated carbon stock and flux as a result of changes were estimated in Mamlay watershed of Sikkim Himalaya, India. The total area of forest was decreased by 28%, whereas open cropped area increased by more than 100%. The conversion of forests into other land uses resulted in a remarkable decline in the C densities. Across the...
The objective of this study was to examine the interactive effects of tillage and land forms (erodibility) on the redistribution of C, N and P within an agricultural landscape. Soils were sampled from an undulating maize field in central Belgium. Half of the field was under conventional tillage (CT), while the rest was under minimum tillage (MT) management. Based on slope and curvature characteristics,...
Two native shrubs (Piliostigma reticulatum and Guiera senegalensis) commonly coexist with crops in fields throughout the Sahel but aboveground residue is annually coppiced and burned. An alternative, with potential to improve soil quality, would be non-thermal return of residues to soils but information is needed on the potential of residues’ to provide nutrients before such systems can be adopted...
Grazing exclusion (GE) can increase the carbon (C) storage of semiarid grasslands in China; however, little is known about the effect of long-term GE on the C storage of soil fractions. On the basis of a chronosequence of grassland restoration from free grazing (FG) to 28-year GE, we investigated the dynamics of total C and N in soil fractions in order to assess the impact of long-term GE on the soil...
Soil samples, collected to a depth of 15cm from 24 plots at six UK deciduous woodland sites in 1971 and 2002, were analysed for 14 C, and total soil carbon pools (gCm −2 ) were estimated. The results, together with data from a further woodland site, were interpreted using steady-state models, driven by the 14 C content of atmospheric CO 2 . The average soil pool is...
Soil microorganisms are sensitive to changes in environmental factors and play critical roles in the responses of terrestrial ecosystems to natural or anthropogenic perturbations. This study was conducted to examine interannual variability of soil microbial biomass and respiration in response to topography, annual burning and N addition in a semiarid temperate steppe in northern China. Averaged across...
There is a well-documented need for new in situ technologies for elemental analysis of soil, particularly for carbon (C), that overcome the limitations of the currently established chemical method by dry combustion (DC). In this work, we evaluated the concordance between the new INS (inelastic neutron scattering) technology and the DC method. The comparisons were carried out in the high C content...
Soil C and nutrient contents were estimated for eight watersheds in two sites (one high elevation, Bull, and one low elevation, Providence) in the Kings River Experimental Watersheds in the western Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Eighty-seven quantitative pits were dug to measure soil bulk density and total rock content, while three replicate surface samples were taken nearby with a bucket...
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