title: Impact of land-use on carbon storage as dependent on soil texture: evidence from a desertified dryland using repeated paired sampling design.
abstract: Desertification resulting from land-use affects large dryland areas around the world, accompanied by carbon loss. However it has been difficult to interpret different land-use contributions to carbon pools owing to confounding factors related to climate, topography, soil texture and other original soil properties. To avoid such confounding effects, a unique systematic and extensive repeated design of paired sampling plots of different land-use types was adopted on Ordos Plateau, N China. The sampling enabled to quantify the effects of the predominant land-use types on carbon storage as dependent on soil texture, and to define the most promising land-use choices for carbon storage, both in grassland on sandy soil and in desert grassland on brown calcareous soil. The results showed that (1) desertification control should be an effective measure to improve the carbon sequestration in sandy grassland, and shrub planting should be better than grass planting; (2) development of man-made grassland should be a good choice to solve the contradictions of ecology and economy in desert grassland; (3) grassland on sandy soil is more vulnerable to soil degradation than desert grassland on brown calcareous soil. The results may be useful for the selection of land-use types, aiming at desertification prevention in drylands. Follow-up studies should directly investigate the role of soil texture on the carbon storage dynamic caused by land-use change.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
authors.forename: Xuehua
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Ye
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China; University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
authors.forename: Shuangli
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: Systems Ecology, Department of Ecological Science, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands; School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.
authors.forename: William K
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Cornwell
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
authors.forename: Shuqin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Gao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China.
authors.forename: Zhenying
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China; Key Laboratory of Hangzhou City for Ecosystem Protection and Restoration, Hangzhou Normal University, Zhejiang 310036, China. Electronic address: dongming@ibcas.ac.cn.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Systems Ecology, Department of Ecological Science, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1085, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Johannes H C
authors.initials: JHC
authors.lastname: Cornelissen
mesh_terms: D002244:Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D057965:Carbon Sequestration; D002681:China; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D003889:Desert Climate; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D010944:Plants; D006109:Poaceae / Q000254:growth & development; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D002244:Carbon
keywords: Carbon storage; Desert grassland; Land-use type; Paired sampling; Sandy grassland; Soil texture