Examining responses of soil respiration to climate change is crucial for understanding future terrestrial carbon (C) cycling. However, the interaction between climate warming and precipitation reduction on soil respiration has not been well documented. This study aimed to determine the impacts of soil warming and Heterotrophic respiration was significantly increased by soil warming while showed little effect by throughfall reduction or its interactions with soil warming. The offset of the positive warming effect on soil respiration under throughfall reduction may be attributed mainly to the changes in soil microbial biomass and fine root biomass induced by throughfall reduction. Our observations suggest that either climate warming or precipitation reduction may increase soil CO 2 emission, but this stimulation in oak forests will be largely counteracted if climate warming accompanies with simultaneous precipitation reduction at the climatic transitional zone.

No abstract

No abstract