The vegetation characteristics of Pinus taiwanensis drive the changes in different components of soil respiration in Wuyi Mountain, Southeast China

Abstract

Background and Aims Many driving variables have been used to model different soil respiration components. However, large uncertainty exists in the annual fluxes of soil respiration related to vegetation characteristics and soil properties. Methods Here, five Pinus taiwanensis forests along different elevations in the Wuyi Mountain were used to explore how the annual fluxes of total soil respiration (RS), autotrophic respiration (RA), and heterotrophic respiration (RH) were regulated by vegetation characteristics, including vegetation carbon sequestration (Vco2), 0-20 cm root biomass (WR), litter production (PL), leaf area index (LAI), and also soil properties, including soil temperature (ST), soil moisture (SM), fungal PLFAs and bacterial PLFAs. Results The results indicate that (1) the RH was positively correlated with ST, PL, WR, and LAI, and negatively correlated with SM; and the RA was positively related to the Vco2 and LAI, and inversely correlated with fungal and bacterial PLFAs. (2) RH is mainly determined by WR, while RA can be comprehensively predicted through the Vco2, and LAI; besides, the redundancy analysis indicated that WR, Vco2, and LAI together explained 83.06% of RS, RH, and RA changes in different elevations. Conclusion Overall, our results suggested that vegetation characteristics attributes such as WR, Vco2, and LAI rather than soil properties and microbial community composition, were more important for explaining the annual fluxes of soil respiration components variance in five P. taiwanensis forests. Thus, soil respiration depends more on the plant capacity to fix organic carbon as an initial source of organic matter sustaining overall soil respiration.