[Effects of variable temperature on organic carbon mineralization in typical limestone soils]

Soil sampling in the field and incubation experiment in the laboratory were conducted to investigate the responses of soil organic carbon (SOC) mineralization to variable temperature regimes in the topsoil of limestone soils from forest land and dry land. Two incubated limestone soils were sampled from the 0-10 cm layers of typical forest land and dry land respectively, which were distributed in Tianlong Mountain area of Puding county, Guizhou province. The soils were incubated for 56 d under two different temperature regimes including variable temperature (range: 15-25 degrees C, interval: 12 h) and constant temperature (20 degrees C), and the cumulative temperature was the same in the two temperature treatments. In the entire incubation period (56 d), the SOC cumulative mineralization (63.32 mg x kg(-1)) in the limestone soil from dry land (SH) under the variable temperature was lower than that (63.96 mg x kg(-1)) at constant 20 degrees C, and there was no significant difference in the SOC cumulative mineralization between the variable and constant temperature treatments (P < 0.05). While the cumulative mineralization (169.46 mg x kg(-1)) of organic carbon in the limestone soil from forest land (SL) under the variable temperature was significantly lower than that (209.52 mg x kg(-1)) at constant 20 degrees C. The results indicated that the responses of SOC mineralization to the variable temperature were obviously different between SL and SH soils. The SOC content and composition were significantly different between SL and SH soils affected by vegetation and land use type, which suggested that SOC content and composition were important factors causing the different responses of SOC mineralization to variable temperature between SL and SH soils. In addition, the dissolved organic carbon (DOC) content of two limestone soils were highly (P < 0.01) positively correlated with daily mineralization of soil organic carbon in both temperature treatments, which implied that controlling DOC production was an important way for the temperature influence of SOC mineralization. During the incubation period, SOC mineralization was independent of microbial biomass carbon (MBC) content in both temperature treatments. Combined with mineralization kinetic data, the results showed that, compared to constant temperature 20 degrees C, variable temperature mainly influenced SOC mineralization by changing microbial community activity rather than by changing microbial quantity.