Relationship between rate of carbon dioxide evolution, microbial biomass carbon, and amount of dissolved organic carbon as affected by temperature and water content of a forest and an arable soil

Abstract

Using an Ochrept soil of a forest at climax stage or of an arable site at Kita‐Ibaraki, a city in central Japan, the rates of carbon dioxide (CO2)‐carbon (C) evolution, the amounts of microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and the amounts of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) were measured in a laboratory with special reference to the incubation temperature and the soil water content. The rates of CO2‐C evolution increased exponentially with increase in the incubation temperature in the range of 4–40°C. The temperature coefficients (Q10) were 2.0 for the forest and 1.9 for the arable soil. The amounts of MBC were almost constant of 980 μg g‐1 soil in the incubation temperature up to 25°C for the forest, and 340 μg g‐1 soil in the incubation temperature up to 31 °C for the arable soil. The amounts of DOC in soil solutions were almost constant at 3.1 μg g‐1 soil in the incubation temperature up to 25°C for the forest, and 3.8 μg g‐1 soil in the incubation temperature up to 31°C for the arable soil. The rates of CO2‐C evolution and the amounts of DOC increased with increase in soil water content (% of soil dry weight) up to 91% for the forest or up to 26% for the arable soil. However, the rates of CO2‐C evolution and the amounts of DOC were almost constant within soil water content in the range of 91–160% or 26–53%, respectively. The amounts of MBC of the forest or arable soil were almost constant over a wide range of soil water content in the range of 41–220% or 8–73%, respectively. The rates of CO2‐C evolution of both the forest and the arable soils were highly correlated with the amounts of DOC, but not with the amounts of MBC, under laboratory conditions in the case that the amounts of DOC were changed by various treatments. The regression equation,