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| Accumulation of soil organic carbon during natural restoration of desertified grassland in China's Horqin Sandy Land |
| YuQiang LI1, XueYong ZHAO1, FengXia ZHANG2, Tala AWADA3, ShaoKun WANG1, HaLin ZHAO1, TongHui ZHANG1, YuLin LI1 |
1 Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China;
2 School of Environmental and Municipal Engineering, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China;
3 School of Natural Resources, University of Nebraska, Lincoln NE 68583, USA |
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Abstract China's Horqin Sandy Land, a formerly lush grassland, has experienced extensive desertification that caused considerable carbon (C) losses from the plant-soil system. Natural restoration through grazing exclusion is a widely suggested option to sequester C and to restore degraded land. In a desertified grassland, we investigated the C accumulation in the total and light fractions of the soil organic matter from 2005 to 2013 during natural restoration. To a depth of 20 cm, the light fraction organic carbon (LFOC) storage increased by 221 g C/m2 (84%) and the total soil organic carbon (SOC) storage increased by 435 g C/m2 (55%). The light fraction dry matter content represented a small proportion of the total soil mass (ranging from 0.74% in 2005 to 1.39% in 2013), but the proportion of total SOC storage accounted for by LFOC was remarkable (ranging from 33% to 40%). The C sequestration averaged 28 g C/(m2•a) for LFOC and 54 g C/(m2•a) for total SOC. The total SOC was strongly and significantly positively linearly related to the light fraction dry matter content and the proportions of fine sand and silt+clay. The light fraction organic matter played a major role in total SOC sequestration. Our results suggest that grazing exclusion can restore desertified grassland and has a high potential for sequestering SOC in the semiarid Horqin Sandy Land.
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Received: 23 July 2014
Published: 05 February 2015
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| Fund: This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41271007, 31170413) and the National Science and Technology Support Program of China (2011BAC07B02). |
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