Building houses and managing lawns could limit yard soil carbon for centuries.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Comparisons of soil carbon (C) pools across land uses can be confounded by site-specific history. To better quantify the response of soil C pools to residential development and use, we compared yard soils (n = 20) to adjacent mown fields and second-growth forests within land-use clusters (LUC; n = 12). Land uses within clusters shared site-specific legacies (land use and other soil forming history) prior to residential development (15-227 years ago). We analyzed soil cores to 60-cm depth for carbon, nitrogen, and bulk density. Within one LUC, we monitored soil dissolved organic carbon, moisture, and thermal regimes to explain soil C dynamics.

Results

We accounted for pre-development legacies to test how present uses affect soil properties. We found that yard soil

SUBMITTER: Peach ME 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7227114 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature