Capability Investigation of Carbon Sequestration in Two Species (Artemisia sieberi Besser and Stipa barbata Desf.) Under Different Treatments of Vegetation Management (Saveh, Iran)

The rangelands, as one of the largest dynamic biomes in the world,have very capabilities. Regulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere,particularly carbon dioxide as the main greenhouse gases, is one of these cases.The attention to rangeland, as cheep and reachable resources to sequestrate thecarbon dioxide, increases after the Industrial Revolution. Rangelands comprise thelarge parts of Iran as a steppic area. Rudshur (Saveh), as area index of steppicarea, was selected under three sites including long-term exclosure, medium-termexclosure, and grazable area due to the capability of carbon dioxide’ssequestration of dominated species. Canopy cover’s percentage of two dominatedspecies (Artemisia sieberi Besser and Stipa barbata Desf.) was determined viaestablishing of random 1 square meter plot. The sampling of above and belowground biomass style was obtained by complete random. After determination ofash percentage in the laboratory; conversion ratio of plant biomass to organiccarbon was calculated by ignition method. Results of the paired t-test showed thatthe amount of carbon sequestration in above ground and underground biomass ofArtemisia sieberi Besser and Stipa barbata Desf. is different in three regions. It,of course, has not any difference between under and surface ground’s biomass ofArtemisia sieberi Besser in long-term exclosure. The independent t-test resultsindicate differences between underground biomass corresponding each other inthe studied sites. Carbon sequestration in the Stipa barbata Desf. was totally morethan Artemisia sieberi Besser. Altogether, the average sequestration of the longtermexclosure was 5.842gr/m², the medium-term exclosure was 4.115gr/m², andgrazable area was 5.975gr/m² so that there is not valuable statistical difference interms of total amount of carbon sequestration to three sites.