Livestock exclusion reduces the spillover effects of pastoral agriculture on soil bacterial communities in adjacent forest fragments.

Forest-to-pasture conversion is known to cause global losses in plant and animal diversity, yet impacts of livestock management after such conversion on vital microbial communities in adjoining natural ecosystems remain poorly understood. We examined how pastoral land management practices impact soil microorganisms in adjacent native forest fragments, by comparing bacterial communities sampled along 21 transects bisecting pasture-forest boundaries. Our results revealed greater bacterial taxon richness in grazed pasture soils and the reduced dispersal of pasture-associated taxa into adjacent forest soils when land uses were separated by a boundary fence. Relative abundance distributions of forest-associated taxa (i.e., Proteobacteria and Nitrospirae) and a pasture-associated taxon (i.e., Firmicutes) also suggest a greater impact of pastoral land uses on forest fragment soil bacterial communities when no fence is present. Bacterial community richness and composition were most related to changes in soil physicochemical variables commonly associated with agricultural fertilization, including concentrations of Olsen P, total P, total Cd, delta 15 N and the ratio of C:P and N:P. Overall, our findings demonstrate clear, and potentially detrimental effects of agricultural disturbance on bacterial communities in forest soils adjacent to pastoral land. We provide evidence that simple land management decisions, such as livestock exclusion, can mitigate the effects of agriculture on adjacent soil microbial communities.

Effects of climate change on the delivery of soil-mediated ecosystem services within the primary sector in temperate ecosystems: a review and New Zealand case study.

Future human well-being under climate change depends on the ongoing delivery of food, fibre and wood from the land-based primary sector. The ability to deliver these provisioning services depends on soil-based ecosystem services (e.g. carbon, nutrient and water cycling and storage), yet we lack an in-depth understanding of the likely response of soil-based ecosystem services to climate change. We review the current knowledge on this topic for temperate ecosystems, focusing on mechanisms that are likely to underpin differences in climate change responses between four primary sector systems: cropping, intensive grazing, extensive grazing and plantation forestry. We then illustrate how our findings can be applied to assess service delivery under climate change in a specific region, using New Zealand as an example system. Differences in the climate change responses of carbon and nutrient-related services between systems will largely be driven by whether they are reliant on externally added or internally cycled nutrients, the extent to which plant communities could influence responses, and variation in vulnerability to erosion. The ability of soils to regulate water under climate change will mostly be driven by changes in rainfall, but can be influenced by different primary sector systems' vulnerability to soil water repellency and differences in evapotranspiration rates. These changes in regulating services resulted in different potentials for increased biomass production across systems, with intensively managed systems being the most likely to benefit from climate change. Quantitative prediction of net effects of climate change on soil ecosystem services remains a challenge, in part due to knowledge gaps, but also due to the complex interactions between different aspects of climate change. Despite this challenge, it is critical to gain the information required to make such predictions as robust as possible given the fundamental role of soils in supporting human well-being.

Convergence of soil nitrogen isotopes across global climate gradients.

Quantifying global patterns of terrestrial nitrogen (N) cycling is central to predicting future patterns of primary productivity, carbon sequestration, nutrient fluxes to aquatic systems, and climate forcing. With limited direct measures of soil N cycling at the global scale, syntheses of the (15)N:(14)N ratio of soil organic matter across climate gradients provide key insights into understanding global patterns of N cycling. In synthesizing data from over 6000 soil samples, we show strong global relationships among soil N isotopes, mean annual temperature (MAT), mean annual precipitation (MAP), and the concentrations of organic carbon and clay in soil. In both hot ecosystems and dry ecosystems, soil organic matter was more enriched in (15)N than in corresponding cold ecosystems or wet ecosystems. Below a MAT of 9.8°C, soil δ(15)N was invariant with MAT. At the global scale, soil organic C concentrations also declined with increasing MAT and decreasing MAP. After standardizing for variation among mineral soils in soil C and clay concentrations, soil δ(15)N showed no consistent trends across global climate and latitudinal gradients. Our analyses could place new constraints on interpretations of patterns of ecosystem N cycling and global budgets of gaseous N loss.

An inorganic CO2 diffusion and dissolution process explains negative CO2 fluxes in saline/alkaline soils.

An 'anomalous' negative flux, in which carbon dioxide (CO2) enters rather than is released from the ground, was studied in a saline/alkaline soil. Soil sterilization disclosed an inorganic process of CO2 dissolution into (during the night) and out of (during the day) the soil solution, driven by variation in soil temperature. Experimental and modeling analysis revealed that pH and soil moisture were the most important determinants of the magnitude of this inorganic CO2 flux. In the extreme cases of air-dried saline/alkaline soils, this inorganic process was predominant. While the diurnal flux measured was zero sum, leaching of the dissolved inorganic carbon in the soil solution could potentially effect net carbon ecosystem exchange. This finding implies that an inorganic module should be incorporated when dealing with the CO2 flux of saline/alkaline land. Neglecting this inorganic flux may induce erroneous or misleading conclusions in interpreting CO2 fluxes of these ecosystems.

Do increased summer precipitation and N deposition alter fine root dynamics in a Mojave Desert ecosystem?

Climate change is expected to impact the amount and distribution of precipitation in the arid southwestern United States. In addition, nitrogen (N) deposition is increasing in these regions due to increased urbanization. Responses of belowground plant activity to increases in soil water content and N have shown inconsistent patterns between biomes. In arid lands, plant productivity is limited by water and N availability so it is expected that changes in these factors will affect fine root dynamics. The objectives of this study were to quantify the effects of increased summer precipitation and N deposition on fine root dynamics in a Mojave Desert ecosystem during a 2-year field experiment using minirhizotron measurements. Root length density, production, and mortality were measured in field plots in the Mojave Desert receiving three 25 mm summer rain events and/or 40 kg N ha(-1)  yr(-1) . Increased summer precipitation and N additions did not have an overall significant effect on any of the measured root parameters. However, differences in winter precipitation resulting from interannual variability in rainfall appeared to affect root parameters with root production and turnover increasing following a wet winter most likely due to stimulation of annual grasses. In addition, roots were distributed more deeply in the soil following the wet winter. Root length density was initially higher under canopies compared to canopy interspaces, but converged toward the end of the study. In addition, roots tended to be distributed more deeply into the soil in canopy interspace areas. Results from this study indicated that increased summer precipitation and N deposition in response to climate change and urbanization are not likely to affect fine root dynamics in these Mojave Desert ecosystems, despite studies showing aboveground plant physiological responses to these environmental perturbations. However, changes in the amount and possibly distribution of winter precipitation may affect fine root dynamics.

Denitrification and availability of carbon and nitrogen in a well-drained pasture soil amended with particulate organic carbon.

A well-drained soil in N-fertilized dairy pasture was amended with particulate organic carbon (POC), either sawdust or coarse woody mulch, and sampled every 4 wk for a year to test the hypothesis that the addition of POC would increase denitrification activity by increasing the number of microsites where denitrification occurred. Overall mean denitrifying enzyme activity (DEA), on a gravimetric basis, was 100% greater for the woody mulch treatment and 50% greater for the sawdust treatment compared with controls, indicating the denitrifying potential of the soil was enhanced. Despite differences in DEA, no difference in denitrification rate, as measured by the acetylene block technique, was detected among treatments, with an average annual N loss of ∼22 kg N ha yr Soil water content overall was driving denitrification in this well-drained soil as regression of the natural log of volumetric soil water content (VWC) against denitrification rate was highly significant ( = 0.74, < 0.001). Addition of the amendments, however, had significant effects on the availability of both C and N. An additional 20 to 40 kg N ha was stored in POC-amended treatments as a result of increases in the microbial biomass. Basal respiration, as a measure of available C, was 400% greater than controls in the sawdust treatment and 250% greater than controls in the mulch. Net N mineralization, however, was significantly lower in the sawdust treatment, resulting in significantly lower nitrate N levels than in the control. We attribute the lack of measured response in denitrification rate to the high temporal variability in denitrification and suggest that diffusion of nitrate may ultimately have limited denitrification in the amended treatments. Our data indicate that manipulation of denitrification by addition of POC may be possible, particularly when nitrate levels are high, but quantifying differences in the rate of denitrification is difficult because of the temporal nature of the process (particularly the complex interaction of N availability and soil water content).