title: Differential controls on soil carbon density and mineralization among contrasting forest types in a temperate forest ecosystem.
abstract: Understanding the controls on soil carbon dynamics is crucial for modeling responses of ecosystem carbon balance to global change, yet few studies provide explicit knowledge on the direct and indirect effects of forest stands on soil carbon via microbial processes. We investigated tree species, soil, and site factors in relation to soil carbon density and mineralization in a temperate forest of central China. We found that soil microbial biomass and community structure, extracellular enzyme activities, and most of the site factors studied varied significantly across contrasting forest types, and that the associations between activities of soil extracellular enzymes and microbial community structure appeared to be weak and inconsistent across forest types, implicating complex mechanisms in the microbial regulation of soil carbon metabolism in relation to tree species. Overall, variations in soil carbon density and mineralization are predominantly accounted for by shared effects of tree species, soil, microclimate, and microbial traits rather than the individual effects of the four categories of factors. Our findings point to differential controls on soil carbon density and mineralization among contrasting forest types and highlight the challenge to incorporate microbial processes for constraining soil carbon dynamics in global carbon cycle models.
authors.affiliation: College of Forest Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.|Institute of Forestry and Climate Change Research, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.|College of Forestry, Guangxi University, Nanning, Guangxi 530004, China.
authors.forename: Ye-Ming
authors.initials: YM
authors.lastname: You
authors.affiliation: College of Forest Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.|Institute of Forestry and Climate Change Research, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Juan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: College of Forest Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.|Institute of Forestry and Climate Change Research, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Xiao-Lu
authors.initials: XL
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.affiliation: College of Forest Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.|Institute of Forestry and Climate Change Research, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Zuo-Xin
authors.initials: ZX
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.affiliation: College of Forest Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.|Institute of Forestry and Climate Change Research, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Zhi-Yong
authors.initials: ZY
authors.lastname: Zhou
authors.affiliation: College of Forest Science, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.|Institute of Forestry and Climate Change Research, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China.
authors.forename: Osbert Jianxin
authors.initials: OJ
authors.lastname: Sun
mesh_terms: D002244:Carbon / Q000378:metabolism; D057486:Carbon Cycle / Q000502:physiology*; D002245:Carbon Dioxide / Q000378:metabolism; D002980:Climate; D065928:Forests; D064307:Microbiota; D029963:Quercus / Q000145:classification / Q000382:microbiology*; D012987:Soil / Q000737:chemistry*; D012988:Soil Microbiology; D014197:Trees / Q000145:classification / Q000382:microbiology*
chemical_list: D012987:Soil; D002245:Carbon Dioxide; D002244:Carbon