TY - JOUR
T1 - Greater humification of belowground than aboveground biomass carbon into particulate soil organic matter in no-till corn and soybean crops
AU - Mazzilli, Sebastián R.
AU - Kemanian, Armen R.
AU - Ernst, Oswaldo R.
AU - Jackson, Robert B.
AU - Piñeiro, Gervasio
N1 - Funding Information:
This research is part of the doctoral dissertation of Sebastián Mazzilli at the University of Buenos Aires. Funding provided by: Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria FTPA #283 (Uruguay); Proyecto de Investigaciones Plurianuales #132 (Argentina); Proyectos de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica #2008e2199 (Argentina); Universidad de Buenos Aires programa Ciencia y Tecnología #20020110100156 (Argentina); Keystone Innovation Starter Kit grant to the Penn State Institutes of Energy and the Environment ; and USDA-NIFA #2012-68002-19795 grant to the Center on Global Change at Duke University. We acknowledge the contributions of Lorena Grion, Priscila Pinto and Lucia Ciuffoli (Universidad de Buenos Aires) and Edith Elliot, Dario Frost and Gonzalo Ferreira (Universidad de la República, Uruguay), who provided expert assistance with laboratory analyses. We are grateful for the valuable reviewing input and suggestions of an anonymous reviewer and David Clay (South Dakota State University) on manuscript versions of this work.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 Elsevier Ltd.
PY - 2015/6/1
Y1 - 2015/6/1
N2 - Quantifying the amount of carbon (C) incorporated from decomposing residues into soil organic carbon (CS) requires knowing the rate of C stabilization (humification rate) into different soil organic matter pools. However, the differential humification rates of C derived from belowground and aboveground biomass into CS pools has been poorly quantified. We estimated the contribution of aboveground and belowground biomass to the formation of CS in four agricultural treatments by measuring changes in δ13C natural abundance in particulate organic matter (CPOM) associated with manipulations of C3 and C4 biomass. The treatments were (1) continuous corn cropping (C4 plant), (2) continuous soybean cropping (C3), and two stubble exchange treatments (3 and 4) where the aboveground biomass left after the grain harvest was exchanged between corn and soybean plots, allowing the separation of aboveground and belowground C inputs to CS based on the different δ13C signatures. After two growing seasons, CPOM was primarily derived from belowground C inputs, even though they represented only ~10% of the total plant C inputs as residues. Belowground biomass contributed from 60% to almost 80% of the total new C present in the CPOM in the top 10cm of soil. The humification rate of belowground C inputs into CPOM was 24% and 10%, while that of aboveground C inputs was only 0.5% and 1.0% for soybean and corn, respectively. Our results indicate that roots can play a disproportionately important role in the CPOM budget in soils. Keywords Particulate organic matter; root carbon inputs; carbon isotopes; humification rate; corn; soybean.
AB - Quantifying the amount of carbon (C) incorporated from decomposing residues into soil organic carbon (CS) requires knowing the rate of C stabilization (humification rate) into different soil organic matter pools. However, the differential humification rates of C derived from belowground and aboveground biomass into CS pools has been poorly quantified. We estimated the contribution of aboveground and belowground biomass to the formation of CS in four agricultural treatments by measuring changes in δ13C natural abundance in particulate organic matter (CPOM) associated with manipulations of C3 and C4 biomass. The treatments were (1) continuous corn cropping (C4 plant), (2) continuous soybean cropping (C3), and two stubble exchange treatments (3 and 4) where the aboveground biomass left after the grain harvest was exchanged between corn and soybean plots, allowing the separation of aboveground and belowground C inputs to CS based on the different δ13C signatures. After two growing seasons, CPOM was primarily derived from belowground C inputs, even though they represented only ~10% of the total plant C inputs as residues. Belowground biomass contributed from 60% to almost 80% of the total new C present in the CPOM in the top 10cm of soil. The humification rate of belowground C inputs into CPOM was 24% and 10%, while that of aboveground C inputs was only 0.5% and 1.0% for soybean and corn, respectively. Our results indicate that roots can play a disproportionately important role in the CPOM budget in soils. Keywords Particulate organic matter; root carbon inputs; carbon isotopes; humification rate; corn; soybean.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.soilbio.2015.02.014
DO - 10.1016/j.soilbio.2015.02.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84924939650
VL - 85
SP - 22
EP - 30
JO - Soil Biology and Biochemistry
JF - Soil Biology and Biochemistry
SN - 0038-0717
ER -