Effect of fire and soil texture on soil carbon in a sub-humid savanna (Matopos, Zimbabwe)

Bird, Michael I.; Veenendaal, E.M.; Moyo, CS; Lloyd, J.; Fröst, Peter

doi:10.1016/s0016-7061(99)00084-1

Cited by 140 publications

(108 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In addition, fencing also has negative effects on the migration and reproduction of wild animals. Too much litter accumulation in the fenced sites might induce increasing risk of wild fire (Bird et al, 2000;Ward et al, 2007). Therefore, grazing exclusion practice should not be too long for sake of economic costs and rangeland use (Papanastasis, 2009).…”

Section: Implications For Sustainable Grassland Management Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of grazing exclusion on carbon sequestration and plant diversity in grasslands of China—A meta-analysis

Xiong

Shi

Zhang

et al. 2016

Ecological Engineering

175

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a b s t r a c tWidespread land degradation has strengthened the urgent need to restore overgrazing grasslands. China has implemented the program 'Returning Grazing Land to Grassland' (RGLG) through grazing exclusion by fence since 2003. Despite a lot of field experiments, there is still controversy on the effects of grazing exclusion on rangeland restoration, highlighting the need for synthetic analysis. We conducted a metaanalysis of 447 entries from 78 papers to analyze the spatiotemporal effects of grazing exclusion on plant diversity, productivity and soil carbon sequestration in the major RGLG-implemented provinces of China. Our results showed that, compared with the grazed sites, grazing exclusion significantly increased carbon stored in aboveground biomass, litter mass, belowground biomass and soils by 84.7%, 111.6%, 25.5% and 14.4%, respectively. Plant coverage, soil available nitrogen, soil available phosphorus and soil microbial biomass carbon increased by 52.0%, 21.7% 22.8% and 26.3%, respectively. However, grazing exclusion had little effects on recovering plant diversity in China's grasslands. Of the factors examined, climatic factors strongly modified the effects of grazing exclusion on ecosystem carbon stocks, for example, precipitation significantly amplified the positive effects. Grazing exclusion played a positive role in soil carbon sequestration in most grassland types except in temperate desert-steppe. But annual soil carbon sequestration rates decayed rapidly over time in both alpine meadow and temperate steppe. Short-term (≤5 years) grazing exclusion remarkably increased species richness, but not significantly in the long run. The threshold from neutral to negative effects of grazing exclusion on species evenness occurs after approximately ten years. Our findings provide evidence that grazing exclusion is an effective way to restore vegetation and sequestrate carbon in degraded grasslands, but not beneficial to plant diversity maintenance. The benefits of grazing exclusion are more effective in humid area than arid area. We suggest that grazing exclusion should be ceased after about six to ten years. Additionally, grazing exclusion should integrate with other appropriate management practices instead of operating on a stand-alone basis.

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Section: Implications For Sustainable Grassland Management Strategiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of grazing exclusion on carbon sequestration and plant diversity in grasslands of China—A meta-analysis

Xiong

Shi

Zhang

et al. 2016

Ecological Engineering

175

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“…Charcoal input in grasslands is probably relatively high due to the high fire frequencies. However, results from field measurements on impacts of fire and charcoal additions on SOC quantities are contradictory, ranging from SOC losses (Bird et al, 2000;Fynn et al, 2003) to no change or increases in the SOC pool (Eckmeier et al, 2007;Ojima et al, 1994). Studies conducted in Kalimantan, Indonesia (van der Kamp et al, 2009;Yonekura et al, 2010), reported even higher SOC s in Imperata grasslands compared to primary forests.…”

Section: Effects Of Land-use Type On Soil Organic Carbon Concentratiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial variability in soil organic carbon in a tropical montane landscape: associations between soil organic carbon and land use, soil properties, vegetation, and topography vary across plot to landscape scales

Blécourt¹,

Corre²,

Paudel

et al. 2017

SOIL

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Abstract. Presently, the lack of data on soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in relation to land-use types and biophysical characteristics prevents reliable estimates of ecosystem carbon stocks in montane landscapes of mainland SE Asia. Our study, conducted in a 10 000 ha landscape in Xishuangbanna, SW China, aimed at assessing the spatial variability in SOC concentrations and stocks, as well as the relationships of SOC with land-use types, soil properties, vegetation characteristics and topographical attributes at three spatial scales: (1) land-use types within a landscape (10 000 ha), (2) sampling plots (1 ha) nested within land-use types (plot distances ranging between 0.5 and 12 km), and (3) subplots (10 m radius) nested within sampling plots. We sampled 27 one-hectare plots -10 plots in mature forests, 11 plots in regenerating or highly disturbed forests, and 6 plots in open land including tea plantations and grasslands. We used a sampling design with a hierarchical structure. The landscape was first classified according to land-use types. Within each land-use type, sampling plots were randomly selected, and within each plot we sampled within nine subplots. SOC concentrations and stocks did not differ significantly across the four land-use types. However, within the open-land category, SOC concentrations and stocks in grasslands were higher than in tea plantations (P < 0.01 for 0-0.15 m, P = 0.05 for 0.15-0.30 m, P = 0.06 for 0-0.9 m depth). The SOC stocks to a depth of 0.9 m were 177.6 ± 19.6 (SE) Mg C ha −1 in tea plantations, 199.5 ± 14.8 Mg C ha −1 in regenerating or highly disturbed forests, 228.6 ± 19.7 Mg C ha −1 in mature forests, and 236.2 ± 13.7 Mg C ha −1 in grasslands. In this montane landscape, variability within plots accounted for more than 50 % of the overall variance in SOC stocks to a depth of 0.9 m and the topsoil SOC concentrations. The relationships of SOC concentrations and stocks with land-use types, soil properties, vegetation characteristics, and topographical attributes varied across spatial scales. Variability in SOC within plots was determined by litter layer carbon stocks (P < 0.01 for 0-0.15 m and P = 0.03 for 0.15-0.30 and 0-0.9 m depth) and slope (P ≤ 0.01 for 0-0.15, 0.15-0.30, and 0-0.9 m depth) in open land, and by litter layer carbon stocks (P < 0.001 for 0-0.15, 0.15-0.30 and 0-0.9 m depth) and tree basal area (P < 0.001 for 0-0.15 m and P = 0.01 for 0-0.9 m depth) in forests. Variability in SOC among plots in open land was related to the differences in SOC concentrations and stocks between grasslands and tea plantations. In forests, the variability in SOC among plots was associated with elevation (P < 0.01 for 0-0.15 m and P = 0.09 for 0-0.9 m depth). The scale-dependent relationships between SOC and its controlling factors demonstrate that studies that aim to investigate the land-use effects on SOC Published by Copernicus Publications on behalf of the European Geosciences Union. 124 M. de Blécourt et al.: Spatial variability of soil organic carbon need an appropriate samp...

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“…Biomass burning could affect the soil carbon stocks, as modelled for the boreal system (Harden et al, 2000) but field observations and experimental studies are rare and have been conducted mainly in savannah, tropical or boreal forests (Forbes et al, 2006). Long-term observations, after burning, have revealed all possible variations: either no changes in soil organic carbon stocks (Roscoe et al, 2000;Dai et al, 2005), a reduction (Bird et al, 2000) or an increase (Ojima et al, 1994). However, the data about soil carbon and charcoal and their dynamics in the soil profile after a fire is limited and to our knowledge no quantitative assessment has been attempted in temperate deciduous forests (Preston and Schmidt, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Minor changes in soil organic carbon and charcoal concentrations detected in a temperate deciduous forest a year after an experimental slash-and-burn

Eckmeier

Gerlach²,

Skjemstad

et al. 2007

Biogeosciences

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Abstract. Anthropogenic fires affected the temperate deciduous forests of Central Europe over millennia. Biomass burning releases carbon to the atmosphere and produces charcoal, which potentially contributes to the stable soil carbon pools and is an important archive of environmental history. The fate of charcoal in soils of temperate deciduous forests, i.e. the processes of charcoal incorporation and transportation and the effects on soil organic matter are still not clear. We investigated the effects of slash-and-burn at a longterm experimental burning site and determined soil organic carbon and charcoal carbon concentrations as well as the soil lightness of colour (L*) in the topmost soil material (0-1, 1-2.5 and 2.5-5 cm depths) before, immediately after the fire and one year later. The main results are that (i) only a few of the charcoal particles from the forest floor were incorporated into the soil matrix, presumably by soil mixing animals. In the 0-1 cm layer, during one year, the charcoal C concentration increased only by 0.4 g kg −1 and the proportion of charcoal C to SOC concentration increased from 2.8 to 3.4%; (ii) the SOC concentrations did not show any significant differences; (iii) soil lightness decreased significantly in the topmost soil layer and correlated well with the concentrations of charcoal C (r=−0.87**) and SOC (r=−0.94**) in the samples from the 0-5 cm layer. We concluded that Holocene biomass burning could have influenced soil charcoal concentrations and soil colour.

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Effect of fire and soil texture on soil carbon in a sub-humid savanna (Matopos, Zimbabwe)

Cited by 140 publications

References 22 publications

Effects of grazing exclusion on carbon sequestration and plant diversity in grasslands of China—A meta-analysis

Effects of grazing exclusion on carbon sequestration and plant diversity in grasslands of China—A meta-analysis

Spatial variability in soil organic carbon in a tropical montane landscape: associations between soil organic carbon and land use, soil properties, vegetation, and topography vary across plot to landscape scales

Minor changes in soil organic carbon and charcoal concentrations detected in a temperate deciduous forest a year after an experimental slash-and-burn

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