Effect of sieving on ex-situ soil respiration of soils from three land use types

Adekanmbi, A. A., Shaw, L. J. and Sizmur, T. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9835-7195 (2020) Effect of sieving on ex-situ soil respiration of soils from three land use types. Journal of Soil Science and Plant Nutrition, 20. pp. 912-916. ISSN 0718-9516 doi: 10.1007/s42729-020-00177-2

Abstract/Summary

This study aims to investigate the effect of sieving on ex situ soil respiration (CO2 flux) measurements from different land use types. We collected soils (0–10 cm) from arable, grassland and woodland sites, allocated them to either sieved (4-mm mesh, freshly sieved) or intact core treatments and incubated them in gas-tight jars for 40 days at 10 °C. Headspace gas was collected on days 1, 3, 17, 24, 31 and 38 and CO2 analysed. Our results showed that sieving (4 mm) did not significantly influence soil respiration measurements, probably because micro aggregates (< 0.25 mm) remain intact after sieving. However, soils collected from grassland soil released more CO2 compared with those collected from woodland and arable soils, irrespective of sieving treatments. The higher CO2 from grassland soil compared with woodland and arable soils was attributed to the differences in the water holding capacity and the quantity and stoichiometry of the organic matter between the three soils. We conclude that soils sieved prior to ex situ respiration experiments provide realistic respiration measurements. This finding lends support to soil scientists planning a sampling strategy that better represents the inhomogeneity of field conditions by pooling, homogenising and sieving samples, without fear of obtaining unrepresentative CO2 flux measurements caused by the disruption of soil architecture.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/88621
Identification Number/DOI	10.1007/s42729-020-00177-2
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Earth Systems Science Science > School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science > Department of Geography and Environmental Science
Publisher	Springer
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