Storage, pattern and driving factors of soil organic carbon in the desert rangelands of northern Xinjiang, north-west China

Abstract

Soil organic carbon (SOC) is a critical variable used to determine the carbon balance. However, large uncertainties arise when predicting the SOC stock in soil profiles in Chinese grasslands, especially on desert rangelands. Recent studies have shown that desert ecosystems may be potential carbon sinks under global climate change. Because of the high spatial heterogeneity, time-consuming sampling methods, and difficult acquisition process, the relationships the SOC storage and distribution have with driving factors in desert rangelands remain poorly understood. Here, we investigated and developed an SOC database from 3162 soil samples (collected at depths of 0−10 cm and 10−20 cm) across 527 sites, as well as the climate conditions, vegetation types, and edaphic factors associated with the sampling sites in the desert rangelands of northern Xinjiang, north-west China. This study aims to determine the SOC magnitude and drivers in desert rangelands. Our findings demonstrate that the SOC and SOC density (SOCD) were 0.05−37.13 g·kg⁻¹ and 19.23−9740.62 g·m⁻², respectively, with average values of 6.81 ± 5.31 g·kg⁻¹ and 1670.38 ± 1202.52 g·m⁻², respectively. The spatial distributions of SOC and SOCD all showed gradually decreasing trends from south-west to north-east. High-SOC areas were mainly distributed in the piedmont lowlands of the Ili valley, while low-SOC regions were mainly concentrated in the north-west area of Altay. The redundancy analysis results revealed that all environmental factors accounted for approximately 37.6% of the spatial variability in SOC; climate factors, vegetation factors, and soil properties explained 15.0%, 1.7%, and 12.3%, respectively. The structural equation model (SEM) further indicated that evapotranspiration, average annual precipitation, and the SWC were the dominant factors affecting SOC accumulation, mainly through direct effects, although indirect effects were also delivered by the vegetation factors. Taken together, the results obtained herein updated the SOC data pool available for desert rangelands and clarified the main driving factors of SOC variations. This study provided supporting data for the sustainable use and management of desert rangelands and the global ecosystem carbon budget.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

soil organic carbon / desert rangeland / SEM analysis / driving factors / Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region of China

References

[1] Acharya S, Charan G, Singh N, Srivastava R B (2012). Soil organic carbon sequestration of cold desert Ladakh.Range Manag Agrofor, 33(1): 79–82

[2] Alidoust E, Afyuni M, Hajabbasi M A, Mosaddeghi M R (2018). Soil carbon sequestration potential as affected by soil physical and climatic factors under different land uses in a semiarid region.Catena, 171: 62–71

[3] Artiningsih T (2006). Ligninolytic activity of ganoderma strains on different carbon sources.Biodiversitas (Surak), 7(4): 307–311

[4] Bao S D (2000). Agrochemical Analysis of Soil (3rd Edition). Beijing: China Agricultural Publishing House

[5] Bradford M A, Wieder W R, Bonan G B, Fierer N, Raymond P A, Crowther T W (2016). Managing uncertainty in soil carbon feedbacks to climate change.Nat Clim Chang, 6(8): 751–758

[6] Brecht M, Miralles D G, Lievens H, Van Der Schalie R, De Jeu R A M, Fernández-Prieto D, Beck H E, Dorigo W A, Verhoest N E (2017). GLEAM v3: satellite-based land evaporation and root-zone soil moisture.Geosci Model Dev, 10(5): 1903–1925

[7] Bruun T B, Elberling D E, Neergaard M E, Magid J (2015). Organic carbon dynamics in different soil types after conversion after conversion of forest to agriculture.Land Degrad Dev, 26(3): 272–283

[8] Calvo de Anta R, Luís E, Febrero-Bande M, Galiñanes J, Macías F, Ortíz R, Casás F (2020). Soil organic carbon in peninsular Spain: influence of environmental factors and spatial distribution.Geoderma, 370: 114365

[9] Chen L F, He Z B, Du J, Yang J J, Zhu X (2016). Patterns and environmental controls of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen in alpine ecosystems of northwestern China.Catena, 137: 37–43

[10] Chen S T, Zou J W, Hu Z H, Lu Y Y (2020). Temporal and spatial variations in the mean residence time of soil organic carbon and their relationship with climatic, soil and vegetation drivers.Global Planet Change, 195: 103359

[11] Chen S, Wang W, Xu W, Wang Y, Wan H, Chen D, Tang Z, Tang X, Zhou G, Xie Z, Zhou D, Shangguan Z, Huang J, He J S, Wang Y, Sheng J, Tang L, Li X, Dong M, Wu Y, Wang Q, Wang Z, Wu J, Chapin F S 3rd, Bai Y (2018a). Plant diversity enhances productivity and soil carbon storage.Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 115(16): 4027–4032

[12] Chen X, Gong L, Li Y M, Zhao J J (2018b). Spatial variation of soil organic carbon and stable isotopes in different soil types of a typical oasis.Environ Sci, 39(10): 4735–4743

[13] Crotty S M, Bertness M D (2015). Positive interactions expand habitat use and the realized niches of sympatric species.Ecology, 96(10): 2575–2582

[14] Delgado-Baquerizo M, Eldridge D J, Maestre F T, Karunaratne S B, Trivedi P, Reich P B, Singh B K (2017). Climate legacies drive global soil carbon stocks in terrestrial ecosystems.Sci Adv, 3(4): e1602008

[15] Eisenhauer N, Bowker M A, Grace J B, Powell J R (2015). From patterns to causal understanding: structural equation modeling (SEM) in soil ecology.Pedobiologia (Jena), 58(2–3): 65–72

[16] Evans R D, Koyama A, Sonderegger D L, Charlet T N, Newingham B A, Fenstermaker L F, Harlow B, Jin V L, Ogle K, Smith S D, Nowak R S (2014). Greater ecosystem carbon in the Mojave Desert after ten years exposure to elevated CO₂.Nat Clim Chang, 4(5): 394–397

[17] Fang J Y, Wang X P, Shen Z H, Tang Z Y, He J S, Yu D, Jiang Y, Wang Z H, Zheng C Y, Zhu J L, Guo Z D (2007). Methods and protocols for plant community inventory.Biodiv Sci, 17(6): 533–548

[18] Germano D J, Rathbun G B, Saslaw L R, Cypher B L, Cypher E A, Vredenburgh L M (2011). The San Joaquin Desert of California: ecologically misunderstood and overlooked.Nat Areas J, 31(2): 138–147

[19] Ghimire R, Bista P, Machado S (2019). Long-term management effects and temperature sensitivity of soil organic carbon in grassland and agricultural soils.Sci Rep, 9(1): 12151

[20] Guan S, An N, Zong N, He Y, Shi P, Zhang J, He N P (2018). Climate warming impacts on soil organic carbon fractions and aggregate stability in a Tibetan alpine meadow.Soil Biol Biochem, 116: 224–236

[21] Hooper D, Coughlan J, Mullen M R (2008). Structural equation modelling: guidelines for determining model fit.Electron J Bus Res Methods, 6(1): 141–146

[22] Hu P L, Liu S J, Ye Y Y, Zhang W, Wang K L, Su Y R (2018). Effects of environmental factors on soil organic carbon under natural or managed vegetation restoration.Land Degrad Dev, 29(3): 387–397

[23] Huang J P, Yu H P, Guan X D, Wang G Y, Guo R X (2015). Accelerated dryland expansion under climate change.Nat Clim Chang, 6(2): 166–171

[24] Huo H, Zhang J, Ma A, Huo J (2018). Progress and prospects of soil carbon cycle in arid desert.J Northwest Forestry U, 33(1): 98–104

[25] Illiger P, Schmidt G, Walde I, Hese S, Kudrjavzev A E, Kurepina N, Mizgirev A, Stephan E, Bondarovich A, Fruehauf M (2019). Estimation of regional soil organic carbon stocks merging classified land-use information with detailed soil data.Sci Total Enviro, 695: 133755

[26] Knapp A K, Briggs J M, Collins S L, Archer S R, Bret-Harte M S, Ewers B E, Peters D P, Young D R, Shaver G R, Pendall E, Cleary M B (2008). Shrub encroachment in north American rangelands: shifts in growth form dominance rapidly alters control of ecosystem carbon inputs.Glob Change Biol, 14(3): 615–623

[27] Kušlienė G, Rasmussen J, Kuzyakov Y, Eriksen J (2014). Medium-term response of microbial community to rhizodeposits of white clover and ryegrass and tracing of active processes induced by ¹³C and ¹⁵N labelled exudates.Soil Biol Biochem, 76: 22–33

[28] Lal R (2004). Soil carbon sequestration impacts on global climate change and food security.Science, 304(5677): 1623–1627

[29] Lal R (2019). Carbon cycling in global drylands.Curr Clim Change Rep, 5(3): 221–232

[30] Lange M, Eisenhauer N, Sierra C A, Bessler H, Engels C, Griffiths R I, Mellado-Vázquez P G, Malik A A, Roy J, Scheu S, Steinbeiss S, Thomson B C, Trumbore S E, Gleixner G (2015). Plant diversity increases soil microbial activity and soil carbon storage.Nat Commun, 6(1): 6707

[31] Lei T, Feng J, Zheng C, Li S, Wang Y, Wu Z, Lu J, Kan G, Shao C, Jia J, Cheng H (2020). Review of drought impacts on carbon cycling in rangeland ecosystems.Front Earth Sci, 14(2): 462–478

[32] Li C, Li Y, Tang L (2010). Soil organic carbon stock and carbon efflux in deep soils of desert and oasis.Environ Earth Sci, 60(3): 549–557

[33] Li D, Shao M A (2014). Soil organic carbon and influencing factors in different landscapes in an arid region of northwestern China.Catena, 116: 95–104

[34] Li K R, Wang S Q, Cao M K (2003). Vegetation and soil carbon storage in China.Sci China Ser D Earth Sci, 47(1): 49–57

[35] Li X, Xiao J (2019). A Global, 0.05-degree product of solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence derived from OCO-2, MODIS, and reanalysis data.Remote Sens (Basel), 11(5): 517

[36] Li Y H, Zhao M L, Li F D (2018b). Soil respiration in typical plant communities in the wetland surrounding the high-salinity Ebinur Lake.Front Earth Sci, 12(3): 611–624

[37] Li Y Q, Wang X Y, Niu Y Y, Lian J, Luo Y Q, Chen Y P, Gong X W, Yang H, Yu P D (2018a). Spatial distribution of soil organic carbon in the ecologically fragile Horqin Rangeland of northeastern China.Geoderma, 325: 102–109

[38] Li Y, Wang Y G, Houghton R A, Tang L S (2015). Hidden carbon sink beneath desert.Geophys Res Lett, 42(14): 5880–5887

[39] Liu R T, Zhao H L, Zhao X Y, Zhu F (2013). Effects of cultivation and grazing exclusion on the soil macro-faunal community of semiarid sandy rangelands in northern China.Arid Land Res Manage, 27(4): 377–393

[40] Ma W W, Li G, Wu J H, Xu G R, Wu J Q (2020). Response of soil labile organic carbon fractions and carbon-cycle enzyme activities to vegetation degradation in a wet meadow on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau.Geoderma, 377: 114565

[41] Ma X, Jin Z Z, Wang Y J, Lei J Q (2021). Effects of shelter forests on soil organic carbon of irrigated soils in the Taklimakan desert.Sustainability (Basel), 13(8): 4535

[42] McArdle B H, Anderson M J (2001). Fitting multivariate models to community data: a comment on distance–based redundancy analysis.Ecology, 82(1): 290–297

[43] Michalet R, Brooker R W, Cavieres L A, Kikvidze Z, Lortie C J, Pugnaire F I, Valiente-Banuet A, Callaway R M (2006). Do biotic interactions shape both sides of the humped-back model of species richness in plant communities?.Ecol Lett, 9(7): 767–773

[44] Nicolás C, Martin-Bertelsen T, Floudas D, Bentzer J, Smits M, Johansson T, Troein C, Persson P, Tunlid A (2019). The soil organic matter decomposition mechanisms in ectomycorrhizal fungi are tuned for liberating soil organic nitrogen.ISME J, 13(4): 977–988

[45] Petrie M D, Collins S L, Swann A M, Ford P L, Litvak M E (2015). Grassland to shrubland state transitions enhance carbon sequestration in the northern Chihuahuan Desert.Glob Change Biol, 21(3): 1226–1235

[46] Scharlemann J P, Tanner E V, Hiederer R, Kapos V (2014). Global soil carbon: understanding and managing the largest terrestrial carbon pool.Carbon Manag, 5(1): 81–91

[47] Sequeira C H, Wills S A, Seybold C A, West L T (2014). Predicting soil bulk density for incomplete databases.Geoderma, 213: 64–73

[48] Song Y F, Lu Y J, Guo Z X, Xu X M, Liu T J, Wang J, Wang W J, Hao W G, Wang J (2019). Variations in soil water content and evapotranspiration in relation to precipitation pulses within desert steppe in Inner Mongolia, China.Water, 11(2): 198

[49] Stone R (2008). Have desert researchers discovered a hidden loop in the carbon cycle?.Science, 320(5882): 1409–1410

[50] Su Y Z, Wang J Q, Yang R, Yang X, Fan G P (2015). Soil texture controls vegetation biomass and organic carbon storage in arid desert rangeland in the middle of Hexi Corridor region in northwest China.Soil Res, 53(4): 366–376

[51] Tang X, Zhao X, Bai Y, Tang Z, Wang W, Zhao Y, Wan H, Xie Z, Shi X, Wu B, Wang G, Yan J, Ma K, Du S, Li S, Han S, Ma Y, Hu H, He N, Yang Y, Han W, He H, Yu G, Fang J, Zhou G (2018). Carbon pools in China’s terrestrial ecosystems: new estimates based on an intensive field survey.Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 115(16): 4021–4026

[52] Tong L, Zhao B, Wu L M (2018). Effect of grazing on soil organic carbon fractions and soil physical-chemical properties in the desert steppe in Inner Mongolia.Ecolo and Environm Sci, 27(9): 1602–1609

[53] Tunlid A, Floudas D, Koide R, Rineau F (2016). Soil organic matter decomposition mechanisms in ectomycorrhizal fungi. In: Marin F, eds. Molecular Mycorrhizal Symbiosis, 257–275

[54] Wang S Q, Zhu S L (2000). Analysis on spatial distribution characteristics of soil organic carbon reservoir in China.Acta Geogr Sin, 67(5): 533–544

[55] Wang W F, Chen X, Luo G P, Li L H (2014). Modeling the contribution of abiotic exchange to CO₂ flux in alkaline soils of arid areas.J Arid Land, 6(1): 27–36

[56] Wang X Y, Li Y Q, Gong X W, Niu Y Y, Chen Y P, Shi X P, Li W (2019). Storage, pattern and driving factors of soil organic carbon in an ecologically fragile zone of northern China.Geoderma, 343: 155–165

[57] Wang Y H, Liu K X, Wu Z P, Jiao L (2020). Comparison and analysis of three estimation methods for soil carbon sequestration potential in the Ebinur Lake Wetland, China.Front Earth Sci, 14(1): 13–24

[58] Wang Y, Li Y, Ye X, Chu Y, Wang X (2010). Profile storage of organic/inorganic carbon in soil: from forest to desert.Sci Total Environ, 408(8): 1925–1931

[59] West J R, Cates A M, Ruark M, Deiss L, Whitman T, Rui Y (2020). Winter rye does not increase microbial necromass contributions to soil organic carbon in continuous corn silage in North Central US.Soil Biol Biochem, 148: 107899

[60] Xiong L, Liu X, Vinci G, Spaccini R, Drosos M, Li L, Piccolo A, Pan G (2019). Molecular changes of soil organic matter induced by root exudates in a rice paddy under CO₂ enrichment and warming of canopy air.Soil Biol Biochem, 137: 107544

[61] Xu H J, Zhao C Y, Wang X P (2019). Spatiotemporal differentiation of the terrestrial gross primary production response to climate constraints in a dryland mountain ecosystem of northwestern China.Agric For Meteorol, 276-277: 107628

[62] Xu P (1993). Rangeland Resources and Ation in Xinjiang. Urumqi: Xinjiang Science and Technology Health Press (in Chinese)

[63] Yan A, Li B G, Huang F, Zhang W T, Jiang P A, Sheng J D (2019). Distribution and storage of soil organic and inorganic carbon under different ecological zones in Xinjiang, China.Int J Agric Biol Eng, 12(1): 116–125

[64] Yang H T, Wang Z R, Li X J, Gao Y H (2019). Vegetation restoration drives the dynamics and distribution of nitrogen and phosphorous pools in a temperate desert soil-plant system.J Environ Manage, 245: 200–209

[65] Yang Q, Pu H M, Zhao X C, Wang Z W, Chen H, Dong R, Chen Y L, Jin B C (2021). Comparison of field measurement methods for different vegetation coverage of three artificial rangelands.Chin J Appl Environ Biol, 27(1): 220–227

[66] Yang X H, Yang F, Zhou C L, Mamtimin A, Huo W, He Q (2020). Improved parameterization for effect of soil moisture on threshold friction velocity for saltation activity based on observations in the Taklimakan Desert.Geoderma, 369: 114322

[67] Yang Y, Liu B (2019). Effects of planting Caragana shrubs on soil nutrients and stoichiometries in desert steppe of northwest China.Catena, 183: 104213

[68] Zhang X S, Sun S Z, Yong S P, Zhuo Z D, Wang R Q (2007). Vegetation Map of the People’s Republic of China (1:1,000,000). Beijing: Geological Publishing House

[69] Zhao B H, Li Z B, Li P, Xu G C, Gao H, Cheng Y T, Chang E H, Yuan S L, Zhang Y, Feng Z H (2017). Spatial distribution of soil organic carbon and its influencing factors under the condition of ecological construction in a hilly-gully watershed of the Loess Plateau, China.Geoderma, 296: 10–17

[70] Zhao C, Miao Y, Yu C, Zhu L, Wang F, Jiang L, Hui D, Wan S (2016). Soil microbial community composition and respiration along an experimental precipitation gradient in a semiarid steppe.Sci Rep, 6(1): 24317

[71] Zhao H L, Zhao X Y, Zhang T H, Zhang X Y, Li Y L, Liu L (2011). Desertification process and its spatial differentation in arid areas of northwest China.J Desert Res, 31(1): 1–8

[72] Zhu H F, Bi R T, Duan Y H, Xu Z J (2017). Scale-location specific relations between soil nutrients and topographic factors in the Fen River Basin, Chinese Loess Plateau.Front Earth Sci, 11(2): 397–406

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

Higher Education Press