Effect of fire, plowing and N addition on soil carbon dynamics in Songnen grassland, northeast China Pujia Yu1,*, Hongtao Jia2, Qiang Li1,3, Wei Zheng1, Fei Li1,3, Daowei Zhou1,** 1Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China 2College of Grassland and Environment Sciences, Xinjiang Agriculture University, Urumqi 830052, China 3University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing-100049, China *Corresponding authors e-mail: yupujia@neigae.ac.cn
**zhoudaowei@neigae.ac.cn
Online published on 31 March, 2014. Abstract This study measured soil respiration rate and soil organic carbon (SOC) concentration in Songnen grassland for treatment of Fire, Plowing and N addition and discussed the effect of these treatments on soil respiration and soil carbon stocks. Our results showed that the diurnal soil respiration rate has the same change trend. Compared with Native grassland, Plowing and Fire treated grassland increased 25.8% and 9.2% of the soil respiration rate. Over 65% of total soil C stocks was stored in the 0–30 cm soil depth. The treatment of Fire and Plowing decreased 7.97% and 8.58% of SOC stocks related to Native grassland in entire profile. The carbon stock was highest at low N addition level (0 and 5 g/m2), and was lowest at high N addition level (15 and 25 g/m2), which indicated that high N addition level may be having a negative effect on SOC stock in Songnen grassland. Top Keywords Alkali-saline soil, Fire and plowing, N addition, Soil organic carbon, Soil respiration. Top |