[Effects of human disturbance on soil aggregates content and their organic C stability in Karst regions]

Taking the primary forest land (PF), natural restoration land (NR), grazing grassland burned annually in winter (GB), and maize-sweet potato cropland (MS) in Karst regions of Northwest Guangxi as test objects, this paper studied the soil aggregates content and their organic C stability in the four ecosystems under different human disturbance patterns. The soil water-stable aggregates (>0.25 mm) content in PF, NR, and GB accounted for more than 70%, while that in MS was only 37%. The destruction rate of soil aggregates structure in the four ecosystems decreased in the sequence of MS (54.9%) > GB (23.2%) > NR (9.8%) and PF (9.6%), with significant differences among them (P<0.05). With increasing incubation time, the mineralization rate of soil aggregate organic C decreased after an initial increase and kept stable after 20 days, and increased with decreasing aggregate size. In the same size aggregates, the mineralization rate of organic C in the four ecosystems increased in the sequence of MS < GB and NR < PF. In PF, the mineralization ratio of soil organic C was 1.7% - 3.8%, being significantly higher than that in NR, GB, and MS. The cumulative mineralization amount of soil organic C had the same change trend with the mineralization rate. The contents of soil organic C and aggregate organic C were significantly positively correlated with the mineralization rate and cumulative mineralization amount of organic C, respectively, and significantly negatively correlated with the mineralization ratio of organic C.