Abstract
Soil respiration, resulting in decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC), emits CO2 to the atmosphere and increases under climate warming. However, the impact of heavy metal pollution on soil respiration in croplands is not well understood. Here we show significantly increased soil respiration and efflux of both CO2 and CH4 with a concomitant reduction in SOC storage from a metal polluted rice soil in China. This change is linked to a decline in soil aggregation, in microbial abundance and in fungal dominance. The carbon release is presumably driven by changes in carbon cycling occurring in the stressed soil microbial community with heavy metal pollution in the soil. The pollution-induced increase in soil respiration and loss of SOC storage will likely counteract efforts to increase SOC sequestration in rice paddies for climate change mitigation.
Highlights
A decline was seen in polluted (PF) over background (BG) field, by 22% in soil microbial biomass C and by 43% in total extractable microbial phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs) (Table 2)
Heavy metal pollution has been identified as a severe environmental issue for the potential hazards on environmental health and food safety
Being a main result of this study, marked increases in soil respiration and CO2 effluxes with heavy metal pollution were observed in a rice paddy
Summary
We report a significant increase in soil respiration and CO2 and CH4 evolution, and a concomitant reduction in topsoil C storage from a heavily metal-polluted rice paddy, compared to a nearby control site, from East China. This change is correlated with a significant decline in fungal abundance in the reduced microbial community, and decreased soil aggregation in the polluted soil. The study shows the sequestered carbon can be unlocked in metal polluted croplands, due to a modified soil C cycling within the stressed soil microbial community
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