Stable carbon isotope characteristics of different plant species and surface soil in arid regions

doi:10.1007/s11707-009-0015-7

Front Earth Sci Chin

2009, Vol. 3

Issue (1) : 107-111 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-009-0015-7

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Stable carbon isotope characteristics of different plant species and surface soil in arid regions

Jianying MA^1,2, Wei SUN¹, Huiwen ZHANG⁴, Dunsheng XIA¹, Chengbang AN⁴, Fahu CHEN⁴(

)

1. Dunhuang Gobi and Desert Ecology and Environment Research Station, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China; 2. Department of Botany, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA; 3. Department of Renewable Resources, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA; 4. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental System of Ministry of Education, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China

Download: PDF(122 KB) HTML
Export: BibTeX | EndNote | Reference Manager | ProCite | RefWorks

Abstract

The stable carbon isotope composition in surface soil organic matter (δ¹³C_soil) contains integrative information on the carbon isotope composition of the standing terrestrial plants (δ¹³C_leaf). In order to obtain valuable vegetation information from the δ¹³C of terrestrial sediment, it is necessary to understand the relationship between the δ¹³C value in modern surface soil and the standing vegetation. In this paper, we studied the δ¹³C value in modern surface soil organic matter and standing vegetation in arid areas in China, Australia and the United States. The isotopic discrepancy between δ¹³C_soil and δ¹³C_leaf of the standing dominant vegetation was examined in those different arid regions. The results show that the δ¹³C_soil values were consistently enriched compared to the δ¹³C_leaf. The δ¹³C_leaf values were positively correlated with δ¹³C_soil, which suggests that the interference of microorganisms and hydrophytes on the isotopic composition of surface soil organic matter during soil organic matter formation could be ignored in arid regions. The averaged discrepancy between δ¹³C_soil and δ¹³C_leaf is about 1.71‰ in Tamarix L. in the Tarim Basin in China, 1.50‰ in Eucalytus near Orange in Australia and 1.22‰ in Artemisia in Saratoga in the United States, which are different from the results of other studies. The results indicate that the discrepancies in the δ¹³C value between surface soil organic matter and standing vegetation were highly influenced by the differences in geophysical location and the dominant species of the studied ecosystems. We suggest that caution should be taken when organic matter δ¹³C in terrestrial sediment is used to extract paleovegetation information (C₃/C₄ vegetation composition), as the δ¹³C in soil organic matter is not only determined by the ratio of C₃/C₄ species, but also profoundly affected by climate change induced variation in the δ¹³C in dominant species.

Keywords stable carbon isotope composition surface soil vegetation composition

Corresponding Author(s): CHEN Fahu,Email:fhchen@lzu.edu.cn

Issue Date: 05 March 2009

Cite this article:

Jianying MA,Wei SUN,Huiwen ZHANG, et al. Stable carbon isotope characteristics of different plant species and surface soil in arid regions[J]. Front Earth Sci Chin, 2009, 3(1): 107-111.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/10.1007/s11707-009-0015-7
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/Y2009/V3/I1/107

Tab.1 Study sites, dominant species, minimum C (C), maximum C (C), averaged C (‰), sample size and isotopic discrepancy between plant and soil (‰)

Fig.1 Comparison of the carbon isotope composition of plant (C, solid circle) and surface soil organic matter (C, open circle) in different arid regions

Fig.2 The relationship between carbon isotope composition of plants (C) and surface soil organic matter (C) in different arid regions

1	Balesdent J, Girardin C, Mariotti A (1996). Measurement of soil organic matter turnover using ¹³C natural abundance. In: Boutton T W, Yamasaki S I, eds. Mass Spectrometry in Soils . New York: Marcel Dekker Inc., 83-113
2	Cayet C, Lichtfouse E (2001). δ¹³C of plant-derived n-alkanesw in soil particle-size fractions. Organic Geochemistry , 32: 253-258 doi: 10.1016/S0146-6380(00)00172-8
3	Cerling T E (1984). The stable isotopic composition of modern soil carbonate and its relationship to climate. Earth Planetary Science Letters , 71: 229-240 doi: 10.1016/0012-821X(84)90089-X
4	Cerling T E, Hay R L (1986). An isotopic study of paleosol carbonates from Olduvai Gorge. Quaternary Research , 25: 63-78 doi: 10.1016/0033-5894(86)90044-X
5	Cerling T E, Quade J, Wang Y, Bowman J R (1989). Carbon isotopes in soils and palaeosols as ecology and palaeoecology indicators. Nature , 341: 138-139 doi: 10.1038/341138a0
6	Chen J, An Z S, Wang H T, Gao Y (1996). An isotopic study of the S1 paleosol carbonates from the central Loess Plateau of North China. Chinese Science Bulletin , 41(18): 1542-1545
7	Connin S L, Feng X, Virginia R A (2001). Isotopic discrimination during long-term decomposition in an arid land ecosystem. Soil Biology and Biogeochemistry , 33(1): 41-51 doi: 10.1016/S0038-0717(00)00113-9
8	Craig H (1957). Isotopic standards for carbon and oxygen and correction factors for mass-spectrometric analysis of carbon dioxide. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta , 12: 133-149 doi: 10.1016/0016-7037(57)90024-8
9	Feng H Y, An L Z, Chen T, Xu S J, Qiang W Y, Liu G X, Wang X L (2003). The relationship between foliar stable carbon isotope composition in PedicularisL. and environment factors. Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology , 25(1): 88-93 (in Chinese with English abstract)
10	Feng H Y, An L Z, Wang X L (2000). A review on effect of environmental factors on stable carbon isotope composition in plants. Chinese Bulletin of Botany , 17(4): 312-318 (in Chinese with English abstract)
11	Gu Z Y (1991). The carbonate isotopic composition of the Loess-Paleosol sequence and its implication of paleoclimatic change. Chinese Science Bulletin , 36(23): 1979-1983
12	Han J M, Jiang W Y, Lv H Y, Wu N Q, Guo Z T (1995). Carbon and oxygen isotope compositions of carbonate concretions in loess part 2: oxygen isotope and paleo-aridity. Quaternary Sciences , 4: 367-377 (in Chinese with English abstract)
13	Hatté C, Antoine P, Fontugne M, Lang A, Rousseau D, Z?ller L (2001). δ¹³C of Loess Organic Matter as a Potential Proxy for Paleoprecipitation. Quaternary Research , 55: 33-38 doi: 10.1006/qres.2000.2191
14	Hatté C, Antoine P, Fontugne M, Rousseau D D, Tisnérat-Laborde N, Z?ller L (1999). New chronology and organic matterδ¹³C paleoclimatic significance of Nuβloch loess sequence (Rhine Valley, Germany). Quaternary International , 62(1): 85-91 doi: 10.1016/S1040-6182(99)00026-9
15	Hatté C, Fontugne M, Rousseau D D, Antoine P, Z?ller L, Tisnért-Laborde N, Bentaleb I (1998). δ¹³C variations of loess organic matter as a record of the vegetation response to climatic changes during the Weichselian. Geology , 26(7): 583-586
16	He Y, Qin D H, Ren J W, Li F X (2002). The climatic record of organic matter in the paleosol from the Yuanbao Holocene profile. Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology , 24(5): 512-516 (in Chinese with English abstract)
17	Hong Y T, Wang Z G, Jiang H B, Lin Q H, Hong B, Zhu Y X, Wang Y, Xu L S, Leng X T, Li H D (2001). A 6000-year record of changes in drought and precipitation in northeastern China based on a δ¹³C time-series from peat cellulose. Earth and Planetary Science Letters , 185: 111-119 doi: 10.1016/S0012-821X(00)00367-8
18	Lee X Q, Feng Z D, Guo L L, Wang L X, Jin L Y, Huang Y S, Chopping M, Huang D K, Jiang W, Jiang Q, Cheng H G (2005). Carbon isotope of bulk organic matter: A proxy for precipitation in the arid and semiarid central East Asia. Global Biogeochemiscal Cycles , 19(4): 1-8 doi: 10.1029/2004GB002303
19	Lin Q, Wang S, Zhao L (2001). The records of atmospheric CO₂ derived from the stable carbon isotopic composition of buried plant tissues in perennial frozen lacustrine sediments. Journal of Glaciology and Geocryology , 23(1): 22-27 (in Chinese with English abstract)
20	Liu W G, Ning Y F, An Z S, Wu Z H, Lu H Y, Cao Y N (2002). Carbon isotopic composition of modern soil and paleosol as a response to vegetation change on the Chinese Loess Plateau. Science in China (D) , 48(1): 93-99
21	Melillo J M, Aber J D, Linkins A E, Ricca A, Fry B, Nadelhoffer K J (1989). Carbon and nitrogen dynamics along the decay continuum: Plant litter to soil organic matter. Plant and Soil , 115; 189-198 doi: 10.1007/BF02202587
22	Rao Z G, Chen F H, Cao J, Zhang P Z, Zhang P Y (2005). Variation of soil organic carbon isotope and C₃/C₄ vegetation type transition in the western Loess Plateau during the last glacial and Holocene periods. Quaternary Sciences , 25(1): 107-114 (in Chinese with English abstract)
23	Rao Z G, Zhu Z Y, Chen F H, Zhang J W (2006). Reviews on the stable carbon isotopic researches of organic matter of Chinese Loess. Advances in Earth Science , 21(1): 62-69 (in Chinese with English abstract)
24	Schwartz D, Mariotti A, Lanfranchi R, Guillet B (1986). ¹³C/¹²C ratios of soil organic matter as indicators of vegetation changes in the Congo. Geoderma , 39: 97-103 doi: 10.1016/0016-7061(86)90069-8
25	Stanley H A, Nancy E S (1991). Soil carbon isotope evidence for Holocene habitat change in the Kenya Rift Valley. Science , 253: 1402-1405 doi: 10.1126/science.253.5026.1402
26	Stout J D, Rafter T A (1978). The ¹³C/¹²C isotopic ratios of some New Zealand tussock grassland soils. In: Robinson B W, editor. Stable Isotopes in the Earth Sciences . Wellington: DSIR Bulletin220, 279-286
27	Stout J D, Rafter T A, Throughton J H (1975). The possible significance of isotopic ratios in paleoecology. In: Suggate R P, Cresswell M M, editors. Quaternary Studies . Wellington: Royal Society of New Zealand, 279-286
28	Sukumar R, Ramesh R, Pant R K, Rajagopalan G (1993). A δ¹³C record of late Quaternary climate change from tropical peats in southern India. Nature , 364: 703-706 doi: 10.1038/364703a0
29	Wang G A (2001). δ¹³C composition in herbaceous plants and surface soil organic matter in North China. Ph.D. thesis in the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , 105-135 (in Chinese with English abstract)
30	Wang G A, Han J M (2001). Relations between δ¹³C values of C₃ plants in northwestern China and annual precipitation. China Journal of Geology , 36(4): 494-499 (in Chinese with English abstract)
31	Wang G A, Han J M, Zhou L P (2002). Relations between δ¹³C values of C₃ plants and the annual average temperature in northern China. Geology in China , 29(1): 55-57 (in Chinese with English abstract)
32	Wang H, Ambrose S H, Liu C L J, Follmer L R (1997). Paleosol stable isotope evidence for early hominid occupation of East Asian temperate environments. Quaternary Research , 48(2): 228-238 doi: 10.1006/qres.1997.1921
33	Wang H, Follmer L R (1998). Proxy of monsoon seasonality in carbon isotopes from paleaosols of the southern Chinese Loess Plateau. Geology , 26(11): 987-990 doi: 10.1130/0091-7613(1998)026<0987:POMSIC>2.3.CO;2
34	Yang S L, Ding Z L, Gu Z Y, Sun J M, Xiong S F (1999). Pedogenic carbonate isotope record of vegetational evolution since the late Miocene in the Chinese Loess Plateau. Chinese Science Bulletin , 44: 1034-1038 doi: 10.1007/BF02886025

[1]	Djakanibé Désiré TRAORÉ,Yansheng GU,Humei LIU,Ceven SHEMSANGA,Jiwen GE. Vegetation types and climate conditions reflected by the modern phytolith assemblages in the subalpine Dalaoling Forest Reserve, central China[J]. Front. Earth Sci., 2015, 9(2): 268-275.
[2]	Lingli WANG, John J. QU. Satellite remote sensing applications for surface soil moisture monitoring: A review[J]. Front Earth Sci Chin, 2009, 3(2): 237-247.
[3]	XIA Dunsheng, JIN Ming, LIU Xiuming, CHEN Fahu, WEI Haitao, MA Jianying, ZHAO Hui, WANG Xunming. A preliminary study on the magnetic signatures of modern soil in Central Asia[J]. Front. Earth Sci., 2007, 1(3): 275-283.
[4]	MA Jianying, XIA Dunsheng, CHEN Fahu, ZHANG Huiwen. Spatial distribution characteristics of stable carbon isotope compositions in desert plant Reaumuria soongorica (Pall.) Maxim.[J]. Front. Earth Sci., 2007, 1(2): 150-156.

Viewed

Full text

Abstract

Cited

Shared

Discussed