Carbon and nutrient fluxes through litterfall at four succession stages of Caatinga dry forest in Northeastern Brazil

Moura, Patrícia Maia de; Althoff, Tiago Diniz; Oliveira, Renann A.; Souto, Jacob Silva; Souto, Patrícia Carneiro; Menezes, Rômulo Simões Cézar; Sampaio, Everardo V. S. B.

doi:10.1007/s10705-016-9771-4

Cited by 33 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The secondary forest in the Brazilian semiarid region has peculiar features, such as the distinctive phenological patterns of plant growth and litter decomposition, due to climate seasonality, which leads to C losses with soil respiration (Ribeiro et al, 2016). In addition, the Brazilian dry forest showed low vegetation biomass that mainly consists of annual species that dry and disappear during the dry season (Moura et al, 2016).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enzymatic activity, microbial biomass, and organic carbon of Entisols from Brazilian tropical dry forest and annual and perennial crops

Notaro

Medeiros²,

Duda

et al. 2018

Chil. j. agric. res.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enzymatic activity, microbial biomass, and organic carbon of Entisols from Brazilian tropical dry forest and annual and perennial crops

Notaro

Medeiros²,

Duda

et al. 2018

Chil. j. agric. res.

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“…Biocrusts have been reported to influence several ecosystem-level processes, some of which can be considered as ecological services of local and global relevance. Understanding of biogeochemical cycles, including carbon cycling of biocrusts, is limited in the Caatinga (Elbert et al, 2012;Moura et al, 2016;Althoff et al, 2018). Cyanobacteria-dominated biocrusts double the soil organic carbon (SOC) content in the first cm of soil when compared to open soil, at both sites.…”

Section: Biocrusts As Ecosystem Service Providers and Their Role For mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Possible positive effects of soil fertilization by biocrusts could be lost in the future, as the Caatinga is highly threatened by climate change and land use and land-use-driven reductions in SOC stocks have been reported for biocrusts (Thomas et al, 2011). The Caatinga is poorly understood in terms of biogeochemical cycling in general (Moura et al, 2016;Althoff et al, 2018) but more so for biocrust influence. Nonetheless, because of its size it may play an important role in global nutrient cycles and could act as a potential sink for atmospheric CO2.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Neglected but Potent Dry Forest Players: Ecological Role and Ecosystem Service Provision of Biological Soil Crusts in the Human-Modified Caatinga

et al. 2019

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Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) have been recognized as key ecological players in arid and semiarid regions at both local and global scales. They are important biodiversity components, provide critical ecosystem services, and strongly influence soil-plant relationships, and successional trajectories via facilitative, competitive, and edaphic engineering effects. Despite these important ecological roles, very little is known about biocrusts in seasonally dry tropical forests. Here we present a first baseline study on biocrust cover and ecosystem service provision in a human-modified landscape of the Brazilian Caatinga, South America's largest tropical dry forest. More specifically, we explored (1) across a network of 34 0.1 ha permanent plots the impact of disturbance, soil, precipitation, and vegetation-related parameters on biocrust cover in different stages of forest regeneration, and (2) the effect of disturbance on species composition, growth and soil organic carbon sequestration comparing early and late successional communities in two case study sites at opposite ends of the disturbance gradient. Our findings revealed that biocrusts are a conspicuous component of the Caatinga ecosystem with at least 50 different taxa of cyanobacteria, algae, lichens and bryophytes (cyanobacteria and bryophytes dominating) covering nearly 10% of the total land surface and doubling soil organic carbon content relative to bare topsoil. High litter cover, high disturbance by goats, and low soil compaction were the leading drivers for reduced biocrust cover, while precipitation was not associated Second-growth forests supported anequally spaced biocrust cover, while in old-growth-forests biocrust cover was patchy. Disturbance reduced biocrust growth by two thirds and carbon sequestration by half. In synthesis, biocrusts increase soil organic carbon (SOC) in dry forests and as they double the SOC content in disturbed areas, may be capable of counterbalancing disturbance-induced soil degradation in this ecosystem. As they fix and fertilize depauperated soils, they may play a substantial role in vegetation regeneration in the human-modified Caatinga, and may have an extended ecological role due to the Szyja et al. Caatinga Biocrust Distribution and Services ever-increasing human encroachment on natural landscapes. Even though biocrusts benefit from human presence in dry forests, high levels of anthropogenic disturbance could threaten biocrust-provided ecosystem services, and call for further, in-depth studies to elucidate the underlying mechanisms.

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“…Therefore, agricultural incomes are low, and crops are cultivated with minimum external inputs, i.e., usually without fertilizer application (Menezes, Sampaio, Giongo, & Pérez-Marin, 2012). Consequently, soil organic matter is a major source of nutrients, and its decomposition is vital to supporting plant production (Moura et al, 2016).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

<b>Comparison of methods to quantify soil microbial biomass carbon

Moura¹,

Carrido

Sousa

et al. 2018

Acta Sci. Agron.

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Soil microorganism biomass is an important soil quality indicator. The microbial biomass of soil was determined by killing and lysing the soil microbes by fumigation with chloroform, irradiation with gamma rays, or irradiation with microwaves. Four soils with increasing carbon concentrations (5, 10, 15, and 30 g kg-1) were analyzed using four methods: the direct application of chloroform, chloroform fumigation, microwave irradiation, and gamma ray irradiation with radiation doses of 15, 25, 35, 45, and 60 KGy. The fungi and bacteria in the soil were quantified by plate counting. Microwave irradiation and gamma irradiation with doses equal to or above 25 KGy killed all the soil microorganisms, but the chloroform methods did not. The carbon liberation increased with higher gamma doses, while the microbe mortality rates were the same, indicating that carbon was liberated from organic matter sources other than microorganisms. The biomasses determined by the microwave method correlated with those determined by the fumigation and 25 KGy gamma irradiation methods, but their values differed among all methods for at least one soil type. Despite this discrepancy, all methods were consistent in ranking microbial biomasses in increasing order of soil carbon concentrations, which corresponds with decreasing land use intensities.

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Carbon and nutrient fluxes through litterfall at four succession stages of Caatinga dry forest in Northeastern Brazil

Cited by 33 publications

References 51 publications

Enzymatic activity, microbial biomass, and organic carbon of Entisols from Brazilian tropical dry forest and annual and perennial crops

Enzymatic activity, microbial biomass, and organic carbon of Entisols from Brazilian tropical dry forest and annual and perennial crops

Neglected but Potent Dry Forest Players: Ecological Role and Ecosystem Service Provision of Biological Soil Crusts in the Human-Modified Caatinga

<b>Comparison of methods to quantify soil microbial biomass carbon

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