Storage, patterns, and control of soil organic carbon and nitrogen in the northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau

作者：Wenjie Liu, Shengyun Chen, Xiang Qin, Frank Baumann, Thomas Scholten, Zhaoye Zhou, Weijun Sun, Tongzuo Zhang, Jiawen Ren, Dahe Qin · 发表于：Environmental Research Letters · 年份：2012 · DOI：10.1088/1748-9326/7/3/035401 · 被引用次数：161 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Climate change and permafrost、Peatlands and Wetlands Ecology

This study tested the hypothesis that soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (TN) spatial distributions show clear relationships with soil properties and vegetation composition as well as climatic conditions. Further, this study aimed to find the corresponding controlling parameters of SOC and TN storage in high-altitude ecosystems. The study was based on soil, vegetation and climate data from 42 soil pits taken from 14 plots. The plots were investigated during the summers of 2009 and 2010 at the northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. Relationships of SOC density with soil moisture, soil texture, biomass and climatic variables were analyzed. Further, storage and vertical patterns of SOC and TN of seven representative vegetation types were estimated. The results show that significant relationships of SOC density with belowground biomass (BGB) and soil moisture (SM) can be observed. BGB and SM may be the dominant factors influencing SOC density in the topsoil of the study area. The average densities of SOC and TN at a depth of 1 m were about 7.72 kg C m −2 and 0.93 kg N m −2 . Both SOC and TN densities were concentrated in the topsoil (0–20 cm) and fell exponentially as soil depth increased. Additionally, the four typical vegetation types located in the northwest of the study area were selected to examine the relationship between SOC and environmental factors (temperature and precipitation). The results indicate that SOC density has a negative relationship wi...