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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 47(4)

Carbon storage in a Ferrosol under subtropical rainforest, tree plantations, and pasture is linked to soil aggregation

Anna E. Richards A B C D E , Ram C. Dalal B C and Susanne Schmidt A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A School of Biological Sciences, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia.

B Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Accounting.

C Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water, 80 Meiers Rd, Indooroopilly, Qld 4068, Australia.

D Current address: CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Tropical Ecosystems Research Centre, PMB 44, Winnellie, NT 0822, Australia.

E Corresponding author. Email: Anna.Richards@csiro.au

Australian Journal of Soil Research 47(4) 341-350 https://doi.org/10.1071/SR08162
Submitted: 15 July 2008  Accepted: 6 March 2009   Published: 30 June 2009

Abstract

Soil is a large sink for carbon (C), with the potential to significantly reduce the net increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration. However, we previously showed that subtropical tree plantations store less C into long-term soil pools than rainforest or pasture. To explore reasons for differences in C storage between different land-use systems, we examined the relationships between soil aggregation, iron and aluminium oxide and hydroxide content, and soil organic C (SOC) under exotic C4 pasture (Pennisetum clandestinum), native hoop pine (Araucaria cunninghamii) plantations, and rainforest. We measured SOC concentrations of water-stable and fully dispersed aggregates to assess the location of soil C. Concentrations of dithionite- and oxalate-extractable iron and aluminium were also determined to assess their role in SOC sequestration. Soil under rainforest and pasture contained more C in intra-aggregate particulate organic matter (iPOM, >53 μm) than hoop pine plantations, indicating that in rainforest and pasture, greater stabilisation of SOC occurred via soil aggregation. SOC was not significantly correlated with dithionite- and oxalate-extractable Fe and Al in these systems, indicating that sorption sites of Fe and Al oxides and hydroxides were saturated. We concluded that soil C under rainforest and pasture is stabilised by incorporation within soil aggregates, which results in greater storage of C in soil under pasture than plantations following land-use change. The reduced storage of C as iPOM in plantation soil contributes to the negative soil C budget of plantations compared with rainforest and pasture, even 63 years after establishment. The results have relevance for CO2 mitigation schemes based on tree plantations.

Additional keywords: Fe and Al oxides, imSOC, iPOM, soil organic carbon, carbon sequestration.


Acknowledgements

AER received an Australian Postgraduate Award from the University of Queensland and the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Water, and support from the Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Greenhouse Accounting and the Rainforest CRC. The Queensland Department of Primary Industries kindly provided access to the study sites. We thank Ben Harms for help with field sampling, Gordon Moss for carbon analysis, Steven Reeves for whole soil light fraction C separation, and several anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on previous drafts of the manuscript.


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