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Soil Organic Carbon Increases in Semi-Arid Regions while it Decreases in Humid Regions Due to Woody-Plant Encroachment of Grasslands in South Africa

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Relation http://oar.icrisat.org/10940/
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-33701-7
10.1038/s41598-018-33701-7
 
Title Soil Organic Carbon Increases in Semi-Arid Regions while it Decreases in Humid Regions Due to Woody-Plant Encroachment of Grasslands in South Africa
 
Creator Mureva, A
Ward, D
Pillay, T
Chivenge, P
Cramer, M
 
Subject Semi-arid tropics
Africa
 
Description Grasslands and savannas are experiencing intensive land-cover change due to woody plant encroachment. This change in land cover is thought to alter soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) storage in these ecosystems. Some studies have reported a negative correlation between soil C and N and mean annual precipitation while others have indicated that there is no relationship with mean annual precipitation. We quantified the changes in C and N pools and δ13C and δ15N values to a depth of 1 m in pairs of encroached and adjacent open grassland sites along a precipitation gradient from 300 mm to 1500 mm per annum in South Africa. Our study showed a negative correlation between changes in soil organic C stocks in the 0–100 cm soil layer and mean annual precipitation (MAP). The most humid site (1500 mm MAP) had less C in shrub-encroached sites while the drier sites (300–350 mm MAP) had more C than their paired open grasslands. This study generally showed soil organic C gains in low precipitation areas, with a threshold value between 750 mm and 900 mm. Our threshold value was higher than that found in North America, suggesting that one cannot extrapolate across continents.
 
Publisher Springer Nature Limited
 
Date 2018-10-19
 
Type Article
PeerReviewed
 
Format application/pdf
 
Language en
 
Rights —
 
Identifier http://oar.icrisat.org/10940/1/s41598-018-33701-7.pdf
Mureva, A and Ward, D and Pillay, T and Chivenge, P and Cramer, M (2018) Soil Organic Carbon Increases in Semi-Arid Regions while it Decreases in Humid Regions Due to Woody-Plant Encroachment of Grasslands in South Africa. Scientific Reports (TSI), 8 (1). pp. 1-12. ISSN 2045-2322