THE VERTICAL DISTRIBUTION OF SOIL ORGANIC CARBON AND ITS RELATION TO CLIMATE AND VEGETATION

作者：Estéban G. Jobbágy, Robert B. Jackson · 发表于：Ecological Applications · 年份：2000 · DOI：10.1890/1051-0761(2000)010[0423:tvdoso]2.0.co;2 · 被引用次数：5206 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Soil Geostatistics and Mapping、Soil erosion and sediment transport

As the largest pool of terrestrial organic carbon, soils interact strongly with atmospheric composition, climate, and land cover change. Our capacity to predict and ameliorate the consequences of global change depends in part on a better understanding of the distributions and controls of soil organic carbon (SOC) and how vegetation change may affect SOC distributions with depth. The goals of this paper are (1) to examine the association of SOC content with climate and soil texture at different soil depths; (2) to test the hypothesis that vegetation type, through patterns of allocation, is a dominant control on the vertical distribution of SOC; and (3) to estimate global SOC storage to 3 m, including an analysis of the potential effects of vegetation change on soil carbon storage. We based our analysis on >2700 soil profiles in three global databases supplemented with data for climate, vegetation, and land use. The analysis focused on mineral soil layers. Plant functional types significantly affected the vertical distribution of SOC. The percentage of SOC in the top 20 cm (relative to the first meter) averaged 33%, 42%, and 50% for shrublands, grasslands, and forests, respectively. In shrublands, the amount of SOC in the second and third meters was 77% of that in the first meter; in forests and grasslands, the totals were 56% and 43%, respectively. Globally, the relative distribution of SOC with depth had a slightly stronger association with vegetation than with climate, but t...