Temperate grassland soils are typically a sink for carbon. However, it is estimated that up to 99% of tallgrass prairies in North America have been converted to another land use. These conversions can lead to increased soil erosion and soil organic carbon (SOC) mineralization rates, turning a large carbon sink into a source. The purpose of this study was to compare by land use the retention of SOC, TSN, and fly ash on sloping landscapes with an emphasis on measuring the subsoil in addition to the surface soil. Eight paired plots were established on adjacent, sloping landscape profiles in western Iowa; one site a cropland and the other a remnant tallgrass prairie. The prairie landscape had a baseline SOC stock of 232 Mg-C ha - 1 . After roughly 150 years of agriculture the cropland had 52% less SOC, 39% less TSN, and 22% less fly ash which equates to annual losses of 0.55 Mg-C ha - 1 yr - 1 , 0.04 Mg-N ha - 1 yr - 1 , and 0.0002 Mg-fly ash ha - 1 yr - 1 .
KeywordsSoil Organic CarbonSoil ErosionLand Use ChangeTallgrass Prairie
Hoekstra, J.M., Boucher, T.M., Ricketts, T.H. and Roberts, C. (2005) Confronting a Biome Crisis: Global Disparities of Habitat Loss and Protection. Ecology letters, 8, 23-29. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1461-0248.2004.00686.x
Samson, F. and Knopf, F. (1994) Prairie Conservation in North America. BioScience, 44, 418-421. https://doi.org/10.2307/1312365
Lal, R. (2005) Soil Erosion and Carbon Dynamics. Elsevier, Amsterdam.
Gregorich, E., Greer, K., Anderson, D. and Liang, B. (1998) Carbon Distribution and Losses: Erosion and Deposition Effects. Soil and Tillage Research, 47, 291-302. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0167-1987(98)00117-2
Jones, M. and Donnelly, A. (2004) Carbon Sequestration in Temperate Grassland Ecosystems and the Influence of Management, Climate and Elevated CO2. New Phytologist, 164, 423-439. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2004.01201.x
Conant, R.T., Paustian, K. and Elliott, E.T. (2001) Grassland Management and Conversion into Grassland: Effects on Soil Carbon. Ecological Applications, 11, 343-355. https://doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(2001)011[0343:GMACIG]2.0.CO;2
Bruce, J.P., Frome, M., Haites, E., Janzen, H., Lal, R. and Paustian, K. (1999) Carbon Sequestration in Soils. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 54, 382-389.
Lange, M., Eisenhauer, N., Sierra, C.A., Bessler, H., Engels, C., Griffiths, R.I., Mellado-Vázquez, P.G., Malik, A.A., Roy, J. and Scheu, S. (2015) Plant Diversity Increases Soil Microbial Activity and Soil Carbon Storage. Nature Communications, 6, 6707. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms7707
Reicosky, D. (2002) Long-Term Effect of Moldboard Plowing on Tillage-Induced CO2 Loss. In: Kimble, J.M., Lal, R. and Follett, R.F., Eds., Agricultural Practices and Policies for Carbon Sequestration in Soil, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 87. https://doi.org/10.1201/9781420032291.ch8
Wang, J., Fu, B., Qiu, Y. and Chen, L. (2001) Soil Nutrients in Relation to Land Use and Landscape Position in the Semi-Arid Small Catchment on the Loess Plateau in China. Journal of Arid Environments, 48, 537-550. https://doi.org/10.1006/jare.2000.0763
Guo, L.B. and Gifford, R. (2002) Soil Carbon Stocks and Land Use Change: A Meta Analysis. Global Change Biology, 8, 345-360. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1354-1013.2002.00486.x
Olson, K.R., Jones, R., Gennadiyev, A., Chernyanskii, S., Woods, W. and Lang, J. (2006) Fly-Ash Distribution to Assess Erosion and Deposition in an Illinois Landscape. Soil and Tillage Research, 89, 155-166. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.still.2005.07.007
Olson, K.R., Gennadiyev, A., Zhidkin, A., Markelov, M., Golosov, V. and Lang, J. (2013) Use of Magnetic Tracer and Radio-Cesium Methods to Determine Past Cropland Soil Erosion Amounts and Rates. Catena, 104, 103-110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2012.10.015
Hussain, I., Olson, K.R. and Jones, R. (1998) Erosion Patterns on Cultivated and Uncultivated Hillslopes Determined by Soil Fly Ash Contents. Soil Science, 163, 726-738. https://doi.org/10.1097/00010694-199809000-00006
Olson, K.R., Gennadiyev, A.N., Zhidkin, A.P. and Markelov, M.V. (2011) Impact of Land Use Change and Soil Erosion in Upper Mississippi River Valley on Soil Organic Carbon Retention and Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Soil Science, 176, 449-458. https://doi.org/10.1097/SS.0b013e3182285cde
Olson, K.R., Jones, R., Gennadiyev, A., Chernyanskii, S., Woods, W. and Lang, J. (2003) Soil Catena Formation and Erosion of Two Mississippian Mounds at Cahokia Archaeological Site, Illinois. Soil Science, 168, 812-824. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.ss.0000100469.96182.9c
Olson, K.R., Gennadiyev, A., Jones, R. and Chernyanskii, S. (2002) Erosion Patterns on Cultivated and Reforested Hillslopes in Moscow Region, Russia. Soil Science Society of America Journal, 66, 193-201. https://doi.org/10.2136/sssaj2002.0193
Staff, S.S. (2004) Soil Survey Laboratory Methods Manual: Soil Survey Investigations Report No. 42 Version 4.0. United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, Nebraska.
Salemme, R. (2015) Land-Use Change Effects on Soil Organic Carbon, Total Soil Nitrogen and Soil Erosion in a Temperate Forest and Grassland. Thesis, Graduate College of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana-Champaign.
Olson, K.R., Al-Kaisi M., Lal, R. and Cihacek, L. (2016) Soil Organic Carbon Dynamics in an Eroding and Depositional Landscapes. Open Journal of Soil Science, 6, 121-134. https://doi.org/10.4236/ojss.2016.68013
Manies, K., Harden, J., Kramer, L. and Parton, W. (2001) Carbon Dynamics within Agricultural and Native Sites in the Loess Region of Western Iowa. Global Change Biology, 7, 545-555. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1354-1013.2001.00427.x
Lal, R. (1995) Global Soil Erosion by Water and Carbon Dynamics. In: Lal, R., Kimble, J.M., Levine, E. and Stewart, B.A., Eds., Soils and Global Change, CRC/Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, 131-142.
Lal, R. (2003) Soil Erosion and the Global Carbon Budget. Environment International, 29, 437-450. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0160-4120(02)00192-7
Khan, S., Mulvaney, R., Ellsworth, T. and Boast, C. (2007) The Myth of Nitrogen Fertilization for Soil Carbon Sequestration. Journal of Environmental Quality, 36, 1821-1832. https://doi.org/10.2134/jeq2007.0099