[1] Changes in soil respiration, one of the major fluxes of global carbon cycling, could significantly slow down or accelerate the increase in atmospheric CO2, with consequent feedbacks to climate change. It is critical to understand how substrate availability regulates soil respiration in projecting the response of carbon cycling to changed climate. We conducted a clipping and shading experime...

Low-diversity ecosystems cover large portions of the Earth’s land surface, yet studies of climate change on ecosystem functioning typically focus on temperate ecosystems, where diversity is high and the effects of individual species on ecosystem functioning are difficult to determine. We show that a climate-induced decline of an invertebrate species in a low-diversity ecosystem could contribute...

Predicted climate changes in the US Central Plains include altered precipitation regimes with increased occurrence of growing season droughts and higher frequencies of extreme rainfall events. Changes in the amounts and timing of rainfall events will likely affect ecosystem processes, including those that control C cycling and storage. Soil carbon dioxide (CO2) flux is an important component of...

The amount of organic carbon and nitrogen stored in the soil are thought to be related to climate change. This collaboration with researchers from the Department of Soil, Water, and Climate investigated the effects of farming practices on changes in soil organic carbon and nitrogen. Specifically, the effects of irrigation systems and the amount of manure applied were studied using soil samples ...

Tillage has been reported to reduce organic matter concentrations and increase organic matter turnover rates to a variable extent. The change of soil climate and the incorporation of aboveground C inputs within the soil lead to no unique effect on biodegradation rates, because of their strong interaction with the regional climate and the soil physical properties. The periodical perturbation of ...

Climate warming affects permafrost soil carbon pools in two opposing ways: enhanced vegetation growth leads to higher carbon inputs to the soil, whereas permafrost melting accelerates decomposition and hence carbon release. Here, we study the spatial and temporal dynamics of these two processes under scenarios of climate change and evaluate their influence on the carbon balance of the permafros...

The North Wyke Farm Platform (NWFP) provides data from the field- to the farm-scale, enabling the research community to address key issues in sustainable agriculture better and to test models that are capable of simulating soil, plant and animal processes involved in the systems. The tested models can then be used to simulate how agro-ecosystems will respond to changes in the environment and ma...

In many places in the world, soil information is difficult to obtain and can be non-existent. When no detailed map or soil observation is available in a region of interest, we have to extrapolate from other parts of the world. This chapter will discuss the Homosoil method, which assumes homology of soil-forming factors between a reference area and the region of interest. This includes: climate,...

Climate warming is likely inducing carbon loss from soils of northern ecosystems, but little evidence comes from large-scale observations. Here we used data from a repeated soil survey and remote sensing vegetation index to explore changes in soil organic carbon (SOC) stock on the Tibetan Plateau during the past two decades. Our results showed that SOC stock in the top 30 cm depth in alpine gra...

The Iberian viticultural regions are convened according to the Denomination of Origin (DO) and present different climates, soils, topography and management practices. All these elements influence the vegetative growth of different varieties throughout the peninsula, and are tied to grape quality and wine type. In the current study, an integrated analysis of climate, soil, topography and vegetat...