Abstract
Soil respiration, resulting in decomposition of soil organic carbon (SOC), emits CO2 to the atmosphere and increases under climate warming. However, the impact of heavy metal pollution on soil respiration in croplands is not well understood. Here we show significantly increased soil respiration and efflux of both CO2 and CH4 with a concomitant reduction in SOC storage from a metal polluted rice soil in China. This change is linked to a decline in soil aggregation, in microbial abundance and in fungal dominance. The carbon release is presumably driven by changes in carbon cycling occurring in the stressed soil microbial community with heavy metal pollution in the soil. The pollution-induced increase in soil respiration and loss of SOC storage will likely counteract efforts to increase SOC sequestration in rice paddies for climate change mitigation.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 13233 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Scientific Reports |
| Volume | 5 |
| Early online date | 14 Aug 2015 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Bibliographical note
Date of Acceptance: 17/07/2015The research work was supported by the China Natural Science Foundation under a grant number of 40830528 and of 40671180. P.S. is a Royal Scoiety-Wolfson Research Merit Award holder and was supported by additional travel funds from a UK BBSRC China Partnership Award. P.S.’s contribution was supported by the UK-China Sustainable Agriculture Innovation Network (SAIN). D.C. was supported by an additional travel and collaboration funding from the China Ministry of Education under a “111” project.
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- Does metal pollution matter with C retention by rice soil?
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