Disturbance Effects on Soil Carbon and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Forest Ecosystems

Yanjiang Cai,Scott X Chang

doi:10.3390/f11030297

Abstract

Forests cover around 30% of the global land area and forest ecosystems can store over 70% of total soil organic carbon (SOC) of all terrestrial ecosystems, but SOC stocks and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions may be affected by both natural and anthropogenic disturbances. Even though the changes in forest soil C pool can have a significant effect on climate change, there are some contradictory results regarding the role of forest disturbance on SOC sequestration, GHG emissions, and the mitigation of global changes. Therefore, there is a need to better understand the impact of different disturbance regimes on forest soil C storage and GHG emissions. A Special Issue was therefore organized for discussing the responses of soil C storage and GHG emissions to various types of disturbances in forest ecosystems and a total of 15 studies were accepted for this special issue to assess these responses. This Special Issue includes the effects of storms and beetle outbreaks, Karstification, rock desertification, warming, nitrogen addition, land-use change, field tillage, and biochar application on soil C dynamics and/or GHG emissions.

Highlights

Three papers in this Special Issue address the effect of natural disturbances on soil organic carbon (SOC) content and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, Zhejiang A&F University, Hangzhou 311300, China; Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, 442 Earth Sciences Building, Edmonton, AB T6G 2E3, Canada
Karstification, the dissolution of calcite and the formation of the karst landform in an area where the bedrock is dominated by limestone, can affect soil C dynamics; in this respect, Huang et al found that the C sink in karstified calcareous soils was 11.97 times that of non-karstified red soils, while the role of calcareous soils as a C source was only 1.12 times that in red soils [9]

Summary

Introduction

Three papers in this Special Issue address the effect of natural disturbances on SOC content and GHG emissions. Eleven papers in this Special Issue address the effect of anthropogenic disturbances on soil C

Results

Conclusion