Carbon turnover times shape topsoil carbon difference between Tibetan Plateau and Arctic tundra

Donghai Wu; Dan Liu; Tao Wang; Jinzhi Ding; Yujie He; Philippe Ciais; Gengxin Zhang; Shilong Piao

doi:10.1016/j.scib.2021.04.019

Carbon turnover times shape topsoil carbon difference between Tibetan Plateau and Arctic tundra

Sci Bull (Beijing). 2021 Aug 30;66(16):1698-1704. doi: 10.1016/j.scib.2021.04.019. Epub 2021 May 1.

Authors

Donghai Wu¹, Dan Liu², Tao Wang³, Jinzhi Ding², Yujie He⁴, Philippe Ciais⁵, Gengxin Zhang⁶, Shilong Piao⁷

Affiliations

¹ Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
² Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
⁴ Department of Earth System Science, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA.
⁵ Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁶ Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Electronic address: zhangg@itpcas.ac.cn.
⁷ Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China; Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China; Center for Excellence in Tibetan Plateau Earth Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. Electronic address: slpiao@pku.edu.cn.

PMID: 36654304
DOI: 10.1016/j.scib.2021.04.019

Abstract

The Tibetan Plateau (TP) and Arctic permafrost constitute two large reservoirs of organic carbon, but processes which control carbon accumulation within the surface soil layer of these areas would differ due to the interplay of climate, soil and vegetation type. Here, we synthesized currently available soil carbon data to show that mean organic carbon density in the topsoil (0-10 cm) in TP grassland (3.12 ± 0.52 kg C m^-2) is less than half of that in Arctic tundra (6.70 ± 1.94 kg C m^-2). Such difference is primarily attributed to their difference in radiocarbon-inferred soil carbon turnover times (547 years for TP grassland versus 1609 years for Arctic tundra) rather than to their marginal difference in topsoil carbon inputs. Our findings highlight the importance of improving regional-specific soil carbon turnover and its controlling mechanisms across permafrost affected zones in ecosystem models to fully represent carbon-climate feedback.

Keywords: Arctic tundra; Carbon turnover time; Net primary production; Radiocarbon; Soil organic carbon; Tibetan Plateau.

MeSH terms

Carbon* / analysis
Ecosystem*
Soil
Tibet
Tundra

Substances

Carbon
Soil