Land-use contrasts reveal instability of subsoil organic carbon

Title
Land-use contrasts reveal instability of subsoil organic carbon
Publication Date
2017
Author(s)
Hobley, Eleanor
Baldock, Jeffery
Hua, Quan
Wilson, Brian
( author )
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7983-0909
Email: bwilson7@une.edu.au
UNE Id une-id:bwilson7
Type of document
Journal Article
Language
en
Entity Type
Publication
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Place of publication
United Kingdom
DOI
10.1111/gcb.13379
UNE publication id
une:20161
Abstract
Subsoils contain large amounts of organic carbon which is generally believed to be highly stable when compared with surface soils. We investigated subsurface organic carbon storage and dynamics by analysing organic carbon concentrations, fractions and isotopic values in 78 samples from 12 sites under different land-uses and climates in eastern Australia. Despite radiocarbon ages of several millennia in subsoils, contrasting native systems with agriculturally managed systems revealed that subsurface organic carbon is reactive on decadal timeframes to land-use change, which leads to large losses of young carbon down the entire soil profile. Our results indicate that organic carbon storage in soils is input driven down the whole profile, challenging the concept of subsoils as a repository of stable organic carbon.
Link
Citation
Global Change Biology, 23(2), p. 955-965
ISSN
1365-2486
1354-1013
Start page
955
End page
965

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