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Chinese Journal of Ecology ›› 2021, Vol. 40 ›› Issue (4): 1049-1061.doi: 10.13292/j.1000-4890.202104.008

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Short-term effects of tending thinning on soil labile organic carbon in Pinus massoniana stands.

WANG Xiao-rong1,2, LEI Lei1,3, ZENG Li-xiong1,3, TANG Wan-peng2, CUI Hong-xia2, XIAO Wen-fa1,3*   

  1. (1Research Institute of Forest Ecology, Environment and Protection, ChineseAcademy of Forestry,  Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Environment  Administration of National Forestry and Grassland, Beijing 100091, China; 2Forestry Institute of Hubei Province, Wuhan 430075, China; 3Co-Innovation Center for Sustainable Forestry in Southern China, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing 210037, China).
  • Online:2021-04-10 Published:2021-04-12

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Abstract: Quantifying the variations of soil labile organic carbon in Pinus massoniana stands with different forest management practices is of great significance for understanding the impacts of forest management strategies on soil carbon pool. In this study, we examined the impacts of forest managements, including no-cutting (NC), shrubs cutting (SC), nonP. massoniana cutting (NPMC) and dominant P. massoniana cutting (DPMC), on soil labile organic carbon in P. massoniana air seeded stands in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. We used equidistant grid point sampling method to measure the content and spatial heterogeneity of soil labile organic carbon in topsoil (0-10 cm) and used multiple linear regression model to detect the main driving factors. Our results showed that total organic carbon (TOC) content and microbial biomass carbon (MBC) were significantly lower in SC, NPMC, and DPMC plots than those in NC plot, while the content of soil light fraction organic carbon (LFOC) showed no significant variation. Compared with the NC treatment, the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content increased by 21.68% under NPMC and increased by 19.90% under DPMC treatment, while it decreased by 7.06% under SC treatment. The variation of all soil organic carbon fractions in NC and DPMC plot had a weak spatial autocorrelation. The variation range of soil organic carbon fractions such as TOC, DOC and MBC caused by structure factors was 69.5%-98.5% in SC plot, and that of TOC, DOC, and LFOC was 94.5%-99.7% in NPMC plot. All managements increased the spatial heterogeneity of soil labile organic carbon. The main factors affecting spatial variation of soil labileorganic carbon were soil total organic carbon, total nitrogen, carbon/nitrogen ratio, diameter at breast height of trees, leaf area, and soil moisture. These results indicated that the tending thinning practices including understory removal and selective cutting measures can affect soil organic carbon and increase the instability of soil organic carbon by changing stand structure, soil physical and chemical properties, and microenvironment.

Key words: Pinus massoniana, tending thinning, soil labile organic carbon, spatial heterogeneity, influencing factor.