The Aggregate Structure and Organic Carbon Mineralization in Forest Soils Along an Elevation Gradient in the Sygera Mountains of the Southeastern Tibetan Plateau

作者：Hang Guo, Qiang He, Qiang Meng, Zhihui Min, Peng Chen, Yawei Li, Jiarui Chen, Wei Qi, Zhaoqiang Zhou, Junzeng Xu · 发表于：Forests · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.3390/f16020298 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Coal and Its By-products、Clay minerals and soil interactions

The distribution of the soil aggregate structure and its associated organic carbon along the elevation gradient remains unclear, but it may be crucial for the stabilization of soil carbon pools in mountainous forests. In this study, we first assessed the changes in aggregate-associated organic carbon and the aggregate structure in the 0–20 cm soil layers of an alpine forest in the Sygera Mountains along an elevation gradient (3000–4200 m). We then conducted an incubation experiment to explore the relationship between aggregates and soil organic carbon mineralization, using the Pearson correlation analysis and RDA. The results indicated that macroaggregates and microaggregates were the predominant forms of aggregates in the Sygera Mountains, contributing significantly to organic carbon (33.57% and 38.29%, respectively). As the elevation increased, the stability of aggregates in mid and high elevations (3600–4200 m) was significantly higher than that in low elevations (3000–3300 m). Aggregate stability and macroaggregate-associated organic carbon were positively correlated with the total soil organic carbon, suggesting that organic carbon is essential for promoting soil aggregation in forest soils. With the rising temperatures, the rate of soil mineralization at different elevation sites significantly increased, and the Q10 values were greater at low elevations than at mid and high elevations. This implied that soil carbon pools at low elevations were more sensitive to climate ...