Abstract
Temperate grassland soils store significant amounts of carbon (C). Estimating how much livestock grazing and manuring can influence grassland soil organic carbon (SOC) is key to improve greenhouse gas grassland budgets. The Rothamsted Carbon (RothC) model, although originally developed and parameterized to model the turnover of organic C in arable topsoil, has been widely used, with varied success, to estimate SOC changes in grassland under different climates, soils, and management conditions. In this paper, we hypothesise that RothC-based SOC predictions in managed grasslands under temperate moist climatic conditions can be improved by incorporating small modifications to the model based on existing field data from diverse experimental locations in Europe. For this, we described and evaluated changes at the level of: (1) the soil water function of RothC, (2) entry pools accounting for the degradability of the exogenous organic matter (EOM) applied (e.g., ruminant excreta), (3) the month-on-month change in the quality of C inputs coming from plant residues (i.e above-, below-ground plant residue and rhizodeposits), and (4) the livestock trampling effect (i.e., poaching damage) as a common problem in areas with higher annual precipitation. In order to evaluate the potential utility of these changes, we performed a simple sensitivity analysis and tested the model predictions against averaged data from four grassland experiments in Europe. Our evaluation showed that the default model’s performance was 78% and whereas some of the modifications seemed to improve RothC SOC predictions (model performance of 95% and 86% for soil water function and plant residues, respectively), others did not lead to any/or almost any improvement (model performance of 80 and 46% for the change in the C input quality and livestock trampling, respectively). We concluded that, whereas adding more complexity to the RothC model by adding the livestock trampling would actually not improve the model, adding the modified soil water function and plant residue components, and at a lesser extent residues quality, could improve predictability of the RothC in managed grasslands under temperate moist climatic conditions.
Highlights
Temperate grasslands, which cover 1.25 × 109 ha globally, are important sinks of soil organic carbon (SOC), containing approximately 12% of the global SOC pool [1]
By implementing changes to account for ruminant excreta quality (RothC_1) on the study sites, the model resulted in a slight increase in SOC in time
Changes in the modification of plant residues (RothC_2) resulted in greater SOC increased values in time when compared with the previous modification (RothC_1) (Fig 1)
Summary
Temperate grasslands, which cover 1.25 × 109 ha globally, are important sinks of SOC, containing approximately 12% of the global SOC pool [1]. Changes in grassland management (e.g., stocking rate, fertilisation) are frequent in temperate conditions affecting SOC dynamics [2,3,4]. Grasslands ecosystems under temperate moist conditions are subject to processes that may differ from arable systems in regards with SOC sequestration. Below-ground plant residues in grasslands provide important C inputs for soil C sequestration [5]: Grassland species allocate more C below-ground than cereals [6] and below-ground C has longer residence time than above-ground C [7]. Grazing and wheeling by vehicles can cause damage soil and vegetation structure by trampling and poaching, both affecting plant production, and the potential amount of C inputs causing soil C loss [4,9]. Temperate moist climatic conditions imply that soils are wet-saturated during certain wet periods in which decomposition of organic matter is limited [12]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
