Abstract
Tropical forests play an important role in carbon cycle. However, the temporal and spatial variation in soil carbon dioxide (CO2) emission of tropical forest remains uncertain, especially near the Tropic of Cancer. In this research, we studied the annual soil CO2 fluxes from three tropical montane rainforests on the Hainan Island of China (pristine montane rainforest, PF; secondary montane rainforest, SF; and Podocarpus imbricatus plantation, PP). The results showed a lower annual average soil CO2 flux as 6.85 ± 0.52 Mg C-CO2 ha−1 (9.17 Mg C-CO2 ha−1 in the wet season and 4.50 Mg C-CO2 ha−1 in the dry season). The CO2 fluxes exhibited obviously seasonal variation during the study period. Among the three forest types, PF had the highest average CO2 flux rate of 317.77 ± 147.71 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 (433.08 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 in the wet season and 202.47 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 in the dry season), followed by PP of 286.84 ± 137.48 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 (367.12 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 in the wet season and 206.56 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 in the dry season) and SF of 255.09 ± 155.26 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 (351.48 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 in the wet season and 155.71 mg CO2 m−2 h−1 in the dry season). We found between CO2 fluxes and soil temperature a highly significant linear relation (P 0.05). The CO2 flux was significantly correlated (P < 0.05) with water-filled pore space only for PF. In conclusion, our results suggested soil CO2 fluxes in the three forest types that exhibit obviously spatial and temporal variation, and the temperature is the major factor affecting soil CO2 fluxes from this region.
Published Version
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