title: Depth-distribution patterns and control of soil organic carbon in coastal salt marshes with different plant covers.
abstract: This study was carried out in three kinds of salt marshes according to the vegetation covers, including Phragmites australis salt marsh (PSM), Suaeda salus salt marsh (SSM) and Tamarix chinensis-Suaeda salus salt marsh (TSSM). We applied allometric function, exponential function and logistic function to model the depth distribution of the SOCv and SOCc for each salt marsh, respectively. The results showed that the exponential function fits the depth distribution of the SOCv more well than other two functions. The SOCc can be fitted very well by all three functions for three salt marsh (Adj. R2> 0.99), of which the allometric function was the best one. The mean topsoil concentration factors (TCFs) of three salt marshes were beyond 0.1, which means the SOC enrichment in surface soils due to plant cycling, but TCFs in PSM were significantly higher than those in SSM (P < 0.05). Nearly 30% of SOC was concentrated in the top 20 cm soils. The results of general linear model (GLM) suggested that four soil properties (soil water content, pH, soil salt content and silt+clay) and their interactive effects explained about 80% of the total variation of SOC stock in the top 20 cm soils and the 20-100 cm soil layers.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Junhong
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Bai
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Guangliang
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Qingqing
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Qiongqiong
authors.initials: Q
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Baoshan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cui
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Water Environment Simulation, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Xinhui
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Liu