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Effects of elevated temperature on soil organic carbon and soil respiration under subalpine coniferous forest in western Sichuan Province, China.

PAN Xin-li1,2; LIN Bo1;LIU Qing1   

  1. 1Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China;2Graduate University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, B
    eijing 100039, China
  • Received:2007-11-07 Revised:1900-01-01 Online:2008-08-20 Published:2008-08-20

Abstract: To investigate the effects of elevated temperature on the soil organic carbon content, soil respiration rate, and soil enzyme activities in subalpine Picea asperata plantations in western Sichuan Province of China, a simulation study was conducted in situ with opentop chambers from November 2005 to July 2007. The results showed that under elevated temperature, the mean air temperature and soil temperature were 0.42 ℃ and 0.25 ℃ higher than the control, respectively. In the first and the second year, the increased temperature had somewhat decreasing effects on the soil organic carbon and the C/N ratio at the soil depths of 0-10 cm and 10-20 cm. In the first year the soil organic carbon and the C/N ratio in 0-10 cm soil layer decreased by 8.69%, and 8.52%, respectively; but in the second year, the decrements were lesser. Soil respiration rate was significantly enhanced in the first year of warming, but had no significant difference with the control in the second year. In the first year of warming, the activities of soil invertase, polyphenol oxidase, catalase, protease, and urease increased, and the invertase and polyphenol oxidase activities in 0-10 cm soil layer were significantly higher than the control. In the second year of warming, the activities of invertase, protease and urease still had an increase, but those of catalase and polyphenol oxidase had a downtrend, compared with the control.