Driving factors of temporal variation in agricultural soil respiration

Abstract

Investigations of diurnal and seasonal variations in soil respiration support modeling of regional CO2 budgets and therefore in estimating their potential contribution to greenhouse gases. This study quantifies temporal changes in soil respiration and their driving factors in grassland and arable soils located in Northern Germany. Field measurements at an arable site showed diurnal mean soil respiration rates between 67 and 99 mg CO2 m–2 h–1 with a hysteresis effect following changes in mean soil temperatures. Field soil respiration peaked in April at 5767 mg CO2 m–2 day–1, while values below 300 mg CO2 m–2 day–1 were measured in wintertime. Laboratory incubations were carried out in dark open flow chambers at temperatures from 5°C to 40°C, with 5°C intervals, and soil moisture was controlled at 30%, 50%, and 70% of full water holding capacity. Respiration rates were higher in grassland soils than in arable soils when the incubating temperature exceeded 15°C. The respiration rate difference between them rose with increasing temperature. Monthly median values of incubated soil respiration rates ranged from 0 to 26.12 and 0 to 7.84 µg CO2 g–1 dry weight h–1, respectively, in grassland and arable land. A shortage of available substrate leads to a temporal decline in soil respiration rates, as indicated by a decrease in dissolved organic carbon. Temporal Q10 values decreased from about 4.0 to below 1.5 as temperatures increased in the field. Moreover, the results of our laboratory experiments confirmed that soil temperature is the main controlling factor for the Q10 values. Within the temperature interval between 20°C and 30°C, Q10 values were around 2 while the Q10 values of arable soils were slightly lower compared to that of grassland soils. Thus, laboratory studies may underestimate temperature sensitivity of soil respiration, awareness for transforming laboratory data to field conditions must therefore be taken into account.