Contrasting effects of thinning on soil CO2 emission and above- and belowground carbon regime under a subtropical Chinese fir plantation

Abstract

Thinning plays a major role in forest soil carbon cycling. However, the mechanisms governing soil C fluxes, i.e., C input through litterfall and fine root (FR) production and C output through soil heterotrophic respiration (Rh), remain unclear. To fill this gap, we quantified the C fluxes in the topsoil layer (0–20 cm) by measuring litterfall, FR production and total soil respiration (Rs) (Ra (autotrophic respiration) and Rh) at three thinning intensities (control; low-intensity thinning: extraction of 30% of individual trees; high-intensity thinning (HIT): extraction of 70% of individual trees) in a 26-year-old Chinese fir plantation in southern China. In the control plots, the total C input (110 g C m−2 year−1) via litterfall (59 g C m−2 year−1) and FR production (51 g C m−2 year−1) was much lower than the C output via Rh (518 g C m−2 year−1). This finding demonstrated that the soil is a C source (407 g C m−2 year−1). Furthermore, the C source increased with increasing thinning intensity, particularly under HIT, due to the decreased litterfall return and increased soil CO2 emissions through Rh; this increase occurred despite the increased C input from FR production. In addition, the C output via Rs significantly increased by 42% under HIT due to the stimulation of Ra and Rh. Consequently, thinning reduced the topsoil C pool by 7–8%. Redundancy analysis indicated that the soil C fluxes following thinning were driven by increased FR mortality, understory plant biomass and diversity, and microbial biomass carbon (MBC). Overall, our results indicate that heavy thinning increases soil C loss by increasing soil CO2 emissions and decreasing litterfall return, even under substantially increased FR production. This finding suggests that thinning practices should consider the trade-off between soil C inputs and outputs to reduce the impact of thinning on forest soil carbon sequestration.