Root production, mortality and turnover in soil profiles as affected by clipping in a temperate grassland on the Loess Plateau

作     者：Lin Wei Pengwei Yao Guanghua Jing Xiefeng Ye Jimin Cheng 

作者机构：Department of EnvironmentCollege of ForestryHenan Agricultural UniversityZhengzhou 450002China Department of Tobacco ScienceCollege of Tobacco ScienceHenan Agricultural UniversityZhengzhou 450002China Institute of Soil and Water ConservationChinese Academy of Sciences and Ministry of Water ResourcesYangling 712100China 

出 版 物：《Journal of Plant Ecology》 (植物生态学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2019年第12卷第6期

页      面：1059-1072页

核心收录：

学科分类：0202[经济学-应用经济学] 02[经济学] 020205[经济学-产业经济学] 

基　　金：This study was supported by the‘Mechanisms of grassland degradation and integrative demonstration of their ecological restoration technology in the agro-pastoral transitional zone of the northern China’of the National Key Research and Development Program of China(2016YFC0500700) the‘Spatial scale effect of land use impact on runoff in the Loess Plateau under climate change’of the National Natural Science Foundation of China(41230852) the‘Strategic Priority Research Program-Climate Change:Carbon Budget and Related Issues’of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(XDA05050202) 

主　　题：clipping root dynamics vertical root distribution seasonal variation in root growth temperate grassland 

摘      要：Aims Clipping or mowing for hay,as a prevalent land-use practice,is considered to be an important component of global *** production and turnover in response to clipping have great implications for the plant survival strategy and grassland ecosystem carbon ***,our knowledge about the clipping effect on root dynamics is mainly based on root living biomass,and limited by the lack of spatial and temporal *** study aim was to investigate the effect of clipping on seasonal variations in root length production and mortality and their distribution patterns in different soil layers in semiarid grassland on the Loess *** Clipping was performed once a year in June to mimic the local spring livestock grazing beginning from *** minirhizotron technique was used to monitor the root production,mortality and turnover rate at various soil depths(0–10,10–20,20–30 and 30–50 cm)in 2014(from 30 May to 29 October)and 2015(from 22 April to 25 October).Soil temperature and moisture in different soil layers were also measured during the study *** Findings Our results showed that:(i)Clipping significantly decreased the cumulative root production(P0.05)and increased the cumulative root mortality and turnover rates of the 0–50 cm soil profile for both years.(ii)Clipping induced an immediate and sharp decrease in root length production and an increase in root length mortality in all soil ***,with plant regrowth,root production increased and root mortality decreased gradually,with the root production at a depth of 30–50 cm even exceeding the control in September–October 2014 and April–May 2015.(iii)Clipping mainly reduced root length production and increased root length mortality in the upper 0–20 cm soil profile with rapid root ***,roots at deeper soil layers were either little influenced by clipping or exhibited an opposite trend with slower turnover rate compared with the upper soil profile,leading to th