Interactive effects of global change factors on soil respiration and its components: a meta-analysis

Lingyan Zhou; Xuhui Zhou; Junjiong Shao; Yuanyuan Nie; Yanghui He; Liling Jiang; Zhuoting Wu; Shahla Hosseini Bai

doi:10.1111/gcb.13253

Interactive effects of global change factors on soil respiration and its components: a meta-analysis

Glob Chang Biol. 2016 Sep;22(9):3157-69. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13253. Epub 2016 Mar 8.

Authors

Lingyan Zhou^{1

2

3}, Xuhui Zhou^{1

4}, Junjiong Shao^{1

2

4}, Yuanyuan Nie², Yanghui He², Liling Jiang², Zhuoting Wu⁵, Shahla Hosseini Bai^{6

7}

Affiliations

¹ Tiantong National Field Observation Station for Forest Ecosystem, School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
² Coastal Ecosystems Research Station of Yangtze River Estuary, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Biodiversity Science and Ecological Engineering, The Institute of Biodiversity Science, Fudan University, 220 Handan Road, Shanghai, 200433, China.
³ School of Life Sciences, Anhui Agricultural University, Hefei, Anhui Province, 230036, China.
⁴ Center for Global Change and Ecological Forecasting, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China.
⁵ U.S. Geological Survey and Merriam-Powell Center for Environmental Research, Flagstaff, AZ, 86001, USA.
⁶ Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering, University of the Sunshine Coast, Maroochydore DC, QLD, 4558, Australia.
⁷ Environmental Futures Research Institute, School of Natural Sciences, Griffith University, Nathan, Brisbane, QLD, 4111, Australia.

PMID: 26896336
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13253

Abstract

As the second largest carbon (C) flux between the atmosphere and terrestrial ecosystems, soil respiration (Rs) plays vital roles in regulating atmospheric CO2 concentration ([CO2 ]) and climatic dynamics in the earth system. Although numerous manipulative studies and a few meta-analyses have been conducted to determine the responses of Rs and its two components [i.e., autotrophic (Ra) and heterotrophic (Rh) respiration] to single global change factors, the interactive effects of the multiple factors are still unclear. In this study, we performed a meta-analysis of 150 multiple-factor (≥2) studies to examine the main and interactive effects of global change factors on Rs and its two components. Our results showed that elevated [CO2 ] (E), nitrogen addition (N), irrigation (I), and warming (W) induced significant increases in Rs by 28.6%, 8.8%, 9.7%, and 7.1%, respectively. The combined effects of the multiple factors, EN, EW, DE, IE, IN, IW, IEW, and DEW, were also significantly positive on Rs to a greater extent than those of the single-factor ones. For all the individual studies, the additive interactions were predominant on Rs (90.6%) and its components (≈70.0%) relative to synergistic and antagonistic ones. However, the different combinations of global change factors (e.g., EN, NW, EW, IW) indicated that the three types of interactions were all important, with two combinations for synergistic effects, two for antagonistic, and five for additive when at least eight independent experiments were considered. In addition, the interactions of elevated [CO2 ] and warming had opposite effects on Ra and Rh, suggesting that different processes may influence their responses to the multifactor interactions. Our study highlights the crucial importance of the interactive effects among the multiple factors on Rs and its components, which could inform regional and global models to assess the climate-biosphere feedbacks and improve predictions of the future states of the ecological and climate systems.

Keywords: drought; elevated CO2; irrigation; nitrogen addition; soil respiration; warming.

Publication types

Meta-Analysis

MeSH terms

Autotrophic Processes
Carbon Cycle*
Ecosystem*
Nitrogen
Soil*

Substances

Soil
Nitrogen