Junqia Kong

and 4 more

Patterns and elevational controls on the response of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition to temperature in alpine forest soils are critical to efforts to quantify the regional carbon cycle-climate feedback, but are not well known. Here, we report rates of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition (Rs) and temperature sensitivity (Q10) determined in a short-term laboratory incubation with a gradual warming from 5°C to 29°C of soils from different elevations in the Qilian Mountains, China (2,600, 2,800, 3,000, and 3,200 m). The results showed the Rs significantly increased with increasing elevation (P<0.001). Across all elevations, RS first showed an increasing trend at temperatures < 20 ℃ and then declined substantially, most likely in response to the content of labile C (greater at the start of incubation, and declining over time). Q10 of SOM decomposition increased significantly with increasing elevation and deceasing incubation temperature (P<0.001). More importantly, soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), 1-2 mm aggregate-associated OC, and elevation were the main control factors affecting Rs and Q10. These results indicate that high-altitude soils in alpine forests of the Qilian Mountains are relatively more sensitive to temperature changes, and have greater potential to release CO2 due to higher SOC contents and 1-2 mm aggregates-associated OC than low-altitude. The findings could serve as a reference for how regional C pools may respond to future warming in alpine forests of the Qilian Mountains.

Junqia Kong

and 4 more

Lacking of systematic evaluations in soil quality and microbial community recovery after different amendments addition limits optimization of amendments combination in coal mine-soils. We performed a short-term incubation experiment over 12 weeks to assess the effects of three amendments (biochar: C; nitrogen fertilizer at three levels: N-N1~N3; microbial agent at two levels: M-M1~M2) based on C/N ratio (regulated by biochar and N level: 35:1, 25:1, 12.5:1) on soil quality and microbial community in the Qilian Mountains, China. Over the incubation period, soil pH and MBC/MBN were significantly lower than unamended treatment in N addition and C+M+N treatments, respectively. Soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (TN), available nitrogen (AN), available phosphorus (AP), available potassium (AK), microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN) contents had a significant increase in all amended treatments (P<0.001). Higher AP, AK, MBC, MBN and lower MBC/MBN were observed in N2-treated soil(corresponding to C/N ratio of 25:1). Meanwhile, N2-treated soil significantly increased species richness and diversity of soil bacterial community (P<0.05). Principal coordinate analysis further showed that soil bacterial community compositions were significantly separated by N level. C-M-N treatments (especially at N2 and N1 levels) significantly increased the relative abundance (>1%) of the bacterial phyla Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, and decreased the relative abundance of fungal phyla Chytridiomycota (P<0.05). Redundancy analysis illustrated the importance of soil nutrients in explaining variability in bacteria community composition (74.73%) than fungal (35.0%). Our results indicated that N and M addition based on biochar can improve soil quality by neutralizing soil pH and increasing soil nutrient contents, and the appropriate C/N ratio (25:1: biochar+N2-treated soil) can better promote mass, richness and diversity of soil bacterial community. Our study provided a new insight for achieving restoration of damaged habitats by changing microbial structure, diversity and mass by regulating C/N ratio of amendments