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Agriculture
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Research on Soil Carbon Dynamics at Different Scales on Agriculture
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Research on Soil Carbon Dynamics at Different Scales on Agriculture

A special issue of Agriculture (ISSN 2077-0472). This special issue belongs to the section "Agricultural Soils".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 October 2025 | Viewed by 1074

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Qiang Wang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, College of Pastoral Agriculture Science and Technology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730020, China
Interests: terrestrial ecosystem; soil organic carbon; biomarker; soil carbon biogeochemistry; plant–soil carbon allocation; soil elements
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Jian Li

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Environment and Ecology, School of the Environment and Safety Engineering, Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang 212013, China
Interests: coastal wetland; sulfur cycle; carbon sink function; plant invasion; pollution
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Agroecosystems cover over 40% of Earth's land surface and play a central role in mitigating climate change. Soil is the largest terrestrial reservoir of organic carbon and is fundamental for climate change mitigation and carbon–climate feedbacks. Soil organic carbon is a key factor in regulating soil fertility, plant growth, microbial community structure, and soil sustainable development. Unfortunately, expanding and intensifying agriculture is ongoing, thus causing soil carbon (i.e., soil organic carbon and inorganic carbon) loss. Thus, studying agricultural soil carbon dynamics, regulatory mechanisms and carbon sequestration potential at different spatial–temporal scales is critical to addressing climate change, ensuring food security, maintaining ecosystem services, assisting land resource management and providing sustainable development decisions. Taken together, we invite submissions that mainly assess the available knowledge and evidence on the soil organic carbon dynamics, carbon pool and carbon sequestration potential of various ecosystems (e.g., agriculture, grassland and wetland ecosystems and land cover and use change) across a wide range of disciplines (e.g., agronomy, ecology, biology, geomorphology, hydrology, and geographic information science). They can be based on simulated/manipulative experiments, field observational, modeling, and meta-analytic techniques. Research areas may include, but are not limited to, the following:

1) Effects of environmental factors on agricultural soil carbon dynamics, carbon sequestration and carbon storage;
2) The influence and mechanism of species heterogeneity and population/ community structure change (including plants, animals, and microorganisms) on soil carbon cycling;
3) Linkages between agricultural soil carbon cycling and other elements (such as nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur, and silicon);
4) The effects of land use change and cover (including grassland conversion to farmland, wetland drainage and grazing, crop–livestock grazing systems, species pairing techniques, and abandoned agricultural land restoration) on soil carbon dynamics;
5) Conservation and restoration solutions to improve the ecological services of soil and enhance carbon sink function.

All types of manuscript are welcome.

Dr. Qiang Wang
Dr. Jian Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Agriculture is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • plant–soil carbon allocation
  • soil organic carbon
  • soil nutrition
  • microbial community
  • carbon and water cycle
  • biogenic elements
  • soil sustainable development

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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

16 pages, 1489 KiB  
Article
Sward Diversity Modulates Soil Carbon Dynamics After Ploughing Temporary Grassland
by Hendrik P. J. Smit, Hanna Anders, Christof Kluß, Friedhelm Taube, Ralf Loges and Arne Poyda
Agriculture 2025, 15(8), 888; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15080888 - 19 Apr 2025
Viewed by 55
Abstract
Grasslands are crucial for sequestering carbon underground, but disturbances like ploughing can lead to significant soil organic carbon (SOC) loss as CO2, a potent greenhouse gas. Thus, managed grasslands should be maintained to minimize GHG emissions. A field study was carried [...] Read more.
Grasslands are crucial for sequestering carbon underground, but disturbances like ploughing can lead to significant soil organic carbon (SOC) loss as CO2, a potent greenhouse gas. Thus, managed grasslands should be maintained to minimize GHG emissions. A field study was carried out to investigate how varying sward diversity influences soil respiration following the ploughing of temporary grassland. This study investigated the extent of CO2 emissions from different species mixtures immediately after ploughing, as well as C losses when straw was added to plots, over a 142-day period. The species mixture treatments consisted of a binary mixture (BM), a tertiary mixture (TM), and a complex mixture (CM), which were compared to two bare plot treatments, one of which was also ploughed. The highest CO2 flux occurred immediately after ploughing and was observed in the BM treatment (1.99 kg CO2-C ha−1 min−1). Accumulated CO2 emissions ranged from 0.4 to 14.8 t CO2 ha−1. The ploughing effect on CO2 emissions was evident for bare soils, as ploughing increased soil aeration, which enhanced microbial activity and accelerated the decomposition rate of soil organic matter. However, different mixtures did not affect the C turnover rate. Adding straw to treatments resulted in 43% higher CO2 emissions compared to bare plots. The BM treatment likely induced a higher priming effect, suggesting that the incorporated straw, under different sward residues, influenced CO2 emissions more than the mechanical disturbance caused by ploughing. Findings suggest that using complex species mixtures can be recommended as a strategy to reduce CO2 emissions from incorporated biomass and minimize the priming effect of native soil carbon. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Soil Carbon Dynamics at Different Scales on Agriculture)
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14 pages, 4808 KiB  
Article
Effects of Combined Pollution of High-Density Polyethylene and Cadmium on Carbon and Nitrogen Storage and Forms in Coastal Wetland Soil
by Ziying Nie, Shiyan Xu, Xuejing Zang, Huihua Lyu, Zhiquan Wang, Shengbing He, Daolin Du and Jian Li
Agriculture 2025, 15(5), 565; https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture15050565 - 6 Mar 2025
Viewed by 545
Abstract
This study aimed to investigate the effects of HDPE and Cd on forms of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) by measuring the changes in enzymatic activities and physicochemical properties of Spartina alterniflora soil samples from coastal regions of China. Over three incubation periods [...] Read more.
This study aimed to investigate the effects of HDPE and Cd on forms of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) by measuring the changes in enzymatic activities and physicochemical properties of Spartina alterniflora soil samples from coastal regions of China. Over three incubation periods (14, 28, and 56 days), a soil incubation experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of HDPE (0, 0.5, 1, and 2 g per 100 g of soil) and Cd (0, 2, 4, and 8 mg kg−1) on soil physicochemical properties. The results demonstrated that the sole presence of HDPE had a notable impact on enhancing the C-related physicochemical properties of the soil, particularly by elevating the concentration of Total Organic Carbon (TOC). The sole addition of Cd significantly suppressed enzymic activities in the soil, leading to a considerable reduction in the concentration of NH4+-N and NO3−-N. Under identical Cd treatment conditions, the introduction of 1 g HDPE led to an increase in the concentration of TOC, and the inhibitory effect of Cd on enzymic activities was decreased; thus, an elevated consumption of soluble organic carbon (DOC) was identified. However, upon adding 2 g of HDPE, while the TOC concentration continued to rise, the stimulatory effect on enzymic activities diminished. In conclusion, the addition of HDPE inhibits, to a certain extent, the influence of Cd on the carbon and nitrogen cycling in soil. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Research on Soil Carbon Dynamics at Different Scales on Agriculture)
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