Abstract

Soil carbon diversity can be an important property for the stability of soil carbon. A problem is the lack of techniques for measuring this diversity. I suggest here the use of a combination of a general statistical principle, MAXimum ENTropy (MaxEnt), and a mechanistic model of organic matter decomposition, the Q model. The Q model provides the temporal development of the average carbon quality of litter and amount of soil organic C, which can be applied in a MaxEnt calculation to obtain a distribution of soil C over qualities. This distribution may not be the actual distribution but it is the most probable one. This distribution can be used to calculate aggregate properties for the total of soil C. I will use this distribution to calculate the temporal development of the variance in C quality as an expression of C diversity. The general tendency is that the variance declines with time of decomposition. Six long-term bare fallow (LTBF) from different climatic and management conditions were used to investigate which system properties are most important for the temporal development of the variance. The initial quality of the litter forming soil C is the dominant property. Chemical shifts in NMR spectra were tested as a possible way of measuring the variance in C quality.

Keywords

Functional diversity; Long term bare fallow; NMR; Carbon quality; Bare fallow soils; NMR

Published in

Biogeochemistry
2021, Volume: 153, number: 1, pages: 85-94
Publisher: SPRINGER

SLU Authors

• Ågren, Göran

  • Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

Sustainable Development Goals

Protect, restore and promote sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably manage forests, combat desertification, and halt and reverse land degradation and halt biodiversity loss


UKÄ Subject classification

Soil Science


Publication identifier

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-021-00771-1

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/111331