HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

This Article Figures Only Full Text Full Text (PDF) Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Ding, W. Articles by Zheng, X. Search for Related Content PubMed Articles by Ding, W. Articles by Zheng, X. Agricola Articles by Ding, W. Articles by Zheng, X. Related Collections Carbon Sequestration Soil Biochemistry

SOIL BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY

Soil Respiration under Maize Crops: Effects of Water, Temperature, and Nitrogen Fertilization

^a State Key Lab. of Soil and Sustainable Agriculture, Inst. of Soil Science Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
^b National Inst. for Agro-Environmental Sciences, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8604, Japan
^c Inst. of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China

^* Corresponding author (wxding{at}mail.issas.ac.cn).

To evaluate the response of soil respiration to soil moisture, temperature, and N fertilization, and estimate the contribution of soil and rhizosphere respiration to total soil CO₂ emissions, a field experiment was conducted in the Fengqiu State Key Agro-Ecological Experimental Station, Henan, China. The experiment included four treatments: bare soil fertilized with 150 kg N ha^–1 (CK), and maize (Zea mays L.)-cropped soils amended with 0 (N0), 150 (N150), and 250 (N250) kg N ha^–1. Mean seasonal soil CO₂ emissions in the CK, N0, N150, and N250 treatments were estimated to be 294, 598, 541, and 539 g C m^–2, respectively. The seasonal soil CO₂ fluxes were significantly affected by soil temperature, with the change in the rate of flux for each 10°C increase in temperature (Q₁₀) of 1.90 to 2.88, but not by soil moisture. Nitrogen fertilization resulted in a 10.5% reduction in soil CO₂ flux; however, it did not significantly increase the maize aboveground biomass but did increase maize yield. Soil respiration measurement using the root-exclusion technique indicated that soils fertilized with 150 kg N ha^–1 contributed 54% of the total soil CO₂ emission, or 8% of soil organic C down to a depth of 40 cm. An amount of C equivalent to 26% of the net assimilated C in harvested above- and belowground plant biomass was returned to the atmosphere by rhizosphere respiration.

Abbreviations: SOC, soil organic carbon • WFPS, water-filled pore space