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Soil nutrients increase long‐term soil carbon gains threefold on retired farmland
Author(s) -
Seabloom Eric W.,
Borer Elizabeth T.,
Hobbie Sarah E.,
MacDougall Andrew S.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
global change biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.146
H-Index - 255
eISSN - 1365-2486
pISSN - 1354-1013
DOI - 10.1111/gcb.15778
Subject(s) - nutrient , environmental science , soil carbon , agronomy , soil nutrients , soil water , soil science , ecology , biology
Abandoned agricultural lands often accumulate soil carbon (C) following depletion of soil C by cultivation. The potential for this recovery to provide significant C storage benefits depends on the rate of soil C accumulation, which, in turn, may depend on nutrient supply rates. We tracked soil C for almost four decades following intensive agricultural soil disturbance along an experimentally imposed gradient in nitrogen (N) added annually in combination with other macro‐ and micro‐nutrients. Soil %C accumulated over the course of the study in unfertilized control plots leading to a gain of 6.1 Mg C ha −1 in the top 20 cm of soil. Nutrient addition increased soil %C accumulation leading to a gain of 17.8 Mg C ha −1 in fertilized plots, nearly a threefold increase over the control plots. These results demonstrate that substantial increases in soil C in successional grasslands following agricultural abandonment occur over decadal timescales, and that C gain is increased by high supply rates of soil nutrients. In addition, soil %C continued to increase for decades under elevated nutrient supply, suggesting that short‐term nutrient addition experiments underestimate the effects of soil nutrients on soil C accumulation.