Abstract
Many of the native prairies in southern Wisconsin, and the midwestern United States in general, have been replaced by conventional till (chisel plow) and no-tillage corn agroecosystems. However, knowledge of the influence of land use change on the structure and function of ecosystems is incomplete. Soil surface CO 2 flux is a major transfer of carbon from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere and varies greatly among vegetation types. We measured soil surface CO 2 flux and microbial biomass in tilled and no-till corn agroecosystems and a restored prairie ecosystem, examined the influence of various environmental factors on soil surface CO 2 flux in these ecosystems, and estimated annual soil surface CO 2 flux for the natural and managed ecosystems. Soil surface CO 2 flux is significantly greater for prairie and conventional tilled corn than for no-till corn in the spring, greater for prairie than tilled and no-till corn from July to early October, and is similar for all three ecosystems in the late fall and winter. Soil surface CO 2 flux is positively correlated to soil temperature at 10 cm for all three ecosystems ( r 2=0.43–0.60, P<0.001), but is only weakly correlated to soil moisture. Using an empirical model to estimate soil surface CO 2 flux from 10 cm soil temperatures, we estimate annual soil surface CO 2 fluxes of 508, 535 and 719 (g C m −2 y −1) for the tilled and no-till corn and restored prairie ecosystems, respectively, demonstrating that land use practices significantly affect soil surface CO 2 flux.
Published Version
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