The despondences of carbon and nitrogen reserves in plants and soils to vegetations cover change on Kobresia pygmaea meadow of Yellow River and Yangtz River source region
Abstract:We conducted this study on lightly and severely degraded Kobresia pygmaea meadow in Qingzhen village, Gande County, Guoluo Prefecture, Qinghai Province. The purpose of this research was to compare carbon, nitrogen concentration, content of unit area and dynamics of aboveground parts, plants roots and soils depths to 40 cm between lightly and severely degraded Kobresia meadow. The results showed that the aboveground tissue C, N concentration and C∶N ratio was significantly higher in the lightly degraded grassland than in the severely degraded grassland. In addition, total carbon and total nitrogen concentration of aboveground tissue were forbs > grasses > sedges at the same grassland type. total carbon and total nitrogen concentration of belowground roots was significantly higher in the severely degraded grassland than in the lightly degraded grassland.. Total carbon and nitrogen concentration was higher in the aboveground tissue than belowground roots. Total soil organic carbon concentration in severely degraded grassland was significantly lower than that in lightly degraded grassland, and decreased with depths. C and N content in unit area was soil depths 0-20 cm > belowground root > aboveground issue in the same grassland types. The total carbon content of unit area of aboveground tissue, roots and soil depths 0-40 cm(14669.2 g/m2)declined after degradation from lightly to severely degraded grassland(13554.3 g/m2) 7.60%, in which that of soil 0-40 cm declined 4.10%, that of belowground roots declined 59.97% and aboveground tissue declined 15.39%. The nitrogen content of unit area of aboveground tissue, roots and soil depths 0-40 cm(3352.7 g/m2)increased after degradation from lightly to severely degraded grassland(3780.6 g/m2)12.76%, in which that of soil 0-40 cm increased 13.07%, that of belowground roots declined 55.09% and aboveground tissue declined 16.00%. Thanks to degraded grassland, The total carbon lost 11149 kg/hm2, and total nitrogen increased 4278 kg/hm2.