The Forest Soil Carbon in a Changing World

A special issue of Forests (ISSN 1999-4907). This special issue belongs to the section "Forest Ecology and Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 558

Special Issue Editors

School of Ecology and Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210004, China
Interests: soil biogeochemical process; plant biomass allocation; root function; global change ecology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

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Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Herbage Improvement and Grassland Agro-Ecosystems, College of Ecology, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China
Interests: soil carbon cycling; nutrient cycling; plant and soil interactions; soil ecology; forest restoration

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Guest Editor
Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre (CREAF), Cerdanyola del Vallès, 08193 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: chemical ecology; ecotoxicology and metabolomics; reserves and flows of carbon and nutrients; species interactions
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Guest Editor Assistant
Ecological and Forestry Applications Research Centre (CREAF), Cerdanyola del Vallès, 08193 Barcelona, Spain
Interests: soil biogeochemical process; wood decomposition; elemental ecology; phosphorus limitation; revegetation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The forest ecosystem, where the soil carbon pool accounts for 45% of its carbon stock, is the largest carbon pool in the terrestrial ecosystem. Global changes are affecting forest soil carbon processes, leading to positive or negative feedback from forests to the atmosphere. Therefore, a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms by which forest soil carbon processes respond to global changes is necessary. The soil carbon process is regulated by multiple factors, including aboveground litter, root turnover, rhizosphere exudates, microbial decomposition and physical and chemical properties. With the intensification of global changes and the interaction of global change factors, the forest soil carbon process is becoming more complex. This Special Issue aims to provide an important scientific basis for climate change mitigation and further enrich the theory of carbon processes.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Root production;
  • Root exudates;
  • Root phenology;
  • Soil respiration;
  • Soil carbon components;
  • Role of roots and microbes in regulating soil carbon.

Dr. Chao Fang
Dr. Ziqiang Yuan
Dr. Jordi Sardans
Guest Editors

Dr. Xin Song
Guest Editor Assistant

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. Forests is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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

  • global changes
  • forest ecosystem
  • soil
  • root
  • microbes
  • carbon components
  • carbon processes

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

15 pages, 5215 KiB  
Article
Afforestation Enhances Potential Bacterial Metabolic Function without Concurrent Soil Carbon: A Case Study of Mu Us Sandy Land
by Yang Zheng, Jiuying Pei, Zhun Tian, Pingxing Wan and Danfeng Li
Forests 2024, 15(5), 867; https://doi.org/10.3390/f15050867 - 16 May 2024
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Abstract
Elucidating the impact of afforestation on soil bacterial community composition and its potential function in afforestation is imperative for comprehending the biochemical processes of land use change. This study employed high-throughput genomic sequencing to determine the bacterial phylogenetic assembly and assess functional groups [...] Read more.
Elucidating the impact of afforestation on soil bacterial community composition and its potential function in afforestation is imperative for comprehending the biochemical processes of land use change. This study employed high-throughput genomic sequencing to determine the bacterial phylogenetic assembly and assess functional groups following afforestation encompassing shrubland and woodland. Compared with non-afforested cropland, the soil organic carbon (SOC) remained unchanged, but significant alterations were observed in the bacterial composition and potential functions under afforestation. Afforestation enhanced bacterial diversity and even shifted the bacteria from the r- to K-strategy, as indicated by higher oligotroph/copiotroph ratios. Soil properties explained 66.45% and 68.9% of the total variation in bacterial community composition at the phylum level and the functional group. A 60.44% decrease in soil water content, a 3.82% increase in pH, a 7.5% increase in bulk density, and a 66.8% decrease in available phosphorus (AP) were the main soil factors affecting both bacterial community composition and functional traits in afforestation. In particular, lower available nutrients, AP, and nitrate nitrogen in afforestation drive the bacterial life history strategies. We conclude that changes in bacterial metabolic functions due to reduced soil available nutrients from dryland afforestation might be the main driver for microbial-inhibited SOC accumulation. These results could provide strong microbiological evidence to help further evaluate the importance of dryland afforestation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Forest Soil Carbon in a Changing World)
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