Rangeland Use Change to Agriculture Has Different Effects on Soil Organic Matter Fractions Depending on the Type of Cultivation

Abstract

The agricultural use of natural ecosystem is increasing in the Middle East because of population growth in the most countries. The type of cultivation could affect the content of soil organic matter in the rangeland use changes into agriculture. Therefore, we compared soil organic matter fractions of semi‐arid rangelands with agricultural lands (wheat‐land, pea‐land and orchard) where have been changed from semi‐arid rangelands to agriculture 15 years before. The results showed that in general, total and particulate organic matter (TOM and POM) and total nitrogen (TN) were highest in the rangeland compared with the three‐agricultural lands in intact soil, macro‐aggregates and micro‐aggregates (p < 0·05). Nevertheless, TOM content in orchard (1·45%) was higher than the two other land uses, and there was no significant difference of TN between natural rangeland and orchard in intact soil. The highest values of POM were obtained in the rangeland (0·23%) and orchard (0·22%), and the lowest value of POM was obtained in the pea‐land (0·14%) and wheat‐land (0·08%) in macro‐aggregates. In micro‐aggregates, TOM, POM and TN were highest in the rangeland (1·77%, 0·23% and 0·19%, respectively) and showed similar pattern in the three‐agricultural lands. We discussed that compared with pea‐land and wheat‐land, orchard was received less negative impact on soil qualitative parameters in land use changes projects from rangeland into agriculture. We conclude that orchard could be a better option in rangeland use changes into agriculture compared with the other cultivations. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The role of human activity in decreasing ecologically sound land use in China

“…The large‐scale land development ran parallel with the overdevelopment of real estate and overheated economic zones, together with the rapid economic development and population growth in China. This result was consistent with the results of several studies indicating that the agricultural use of the natural ecosystem was increasing in most countries because of the population growth (Papanastasis et al, ; Zandi, Erfanzadeh, & Jafari, ). The report by Kashaigili and Majaliwa () indicated that the principal causes of land use change included expanding agricultural activities, characterized by shifting cultivation and population increases.…”

“…The conversion of land from complex natural systems to simplified agricultural ecosystems is considered a major cause of biodiversity loss (Frelichova & Fanta, ). The land development is often accompanied by a decrease in the stocks of organic and microbial carbon and soil organic matter, as well as changes in microbial activity and litter decomposition (Pabst, Gerschlauer, Kiese, & Kuzyakov, ; Zandi et al, ). Balancing compromises and synergies between providing agricultural or ecological goods or socioeconomic benefits and ecological costs at a regional or macroscale remains challenging but is crucial to strengthen the policy making processes.…”

Wind erosion and dust emissions in central Asia: Spatiotemporal simulations in a typical dust year

“…Although Pi et al . () did not measure soil organic matter content, we assumed organic matter was 0.020 kg kg ‐1 in a cotton field (Wang et al, ) and 0.015 kg kg ‐1 in an orchard (Zandi et al, ). Soil type and primary particle composition used to simulate wind erosion at each of the 64 stations are reported in, respectively, Tables and .…”

“…Pi et al (2014) measured soil properties in an orchard and cotton field in the Tarim Basin. Although Pi et al (2014) did not measure soil organic matter content, we assumed organic matter was 0.020 kg kg -1 in a cotton field (Wang et al, 2016) and 0.015 kg kg -1 in an orchard (Zandi et al, 2017). Soil type and primary particle composition used to simulate wind erosion at each of the 64 stations are reported in, respectively, Tables I and III. The WEPS management database only has crop input files for two land use types (cotton and wheat) found at the 64 stations.…”

Spatial Variation of Soil Seed Bank under Cushion Plants in a Subalpine Degraded Grassland

“…These habitats are subject to high degrees of degradation by human activities (e.g. the conversion of lands into crops or urban: Zandi et al, 2017), poor management and livestock overgrazing around the world (Török et al, 2016). Many vascular plant species are unique to the grasslands, and this biome harbours a very diverse plant species (Dengler et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2017).…”