The effect of pasture utilization rate on stocks of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen in a semi-arid tropical grassland

Soil carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus changes under sugarcane expansion in Brazil

“…Assad et al (2013) found that the soil texture is a prominent key controller of SOC stocks in Brazilian pastures, and suggested that sandy soils should be avoided in order to implement grasslands that are able to maintain at least the same SOC stock compared to the native vegetation. In addition, the low grazing pressure management at this site has also contributed to maintain similar SOC stocks under PA related to NV, once higher grazing pressure has been reported to decrease SOC stocks in tropical grasslands (Pringle et al, 2014). SOC stock depletion was also observed in the conversion of PA to SC, with an average loss rate of 0.25 Mg ha −1 yr −1 (Fig.…”

“…N stock reduction from NV to PA ranged from 3.0 Mg ha −1 to 1.7 at Lat_17S, from 6.0 Mg ha − 1 to 3.0 at Lat_21S, and from 6.8 Mg ha −1 to 5.3 Mg ha −1 at Lat_23S. Pringle et al (2014) reported a significant loss of total nitrogen from the topsoil of a tropical grassland as a result of animal grazing. It can be attributed to the N losses by N harvest in grazing, NH 3 volatilization, denitrification, and leaching (Assmann et al, 2014;Haynes and Williams, 1993).…”

Removing Grazing Pressure from a Native Pasture Decreases Soil Organic Carbon in Southern New South Wales, Australia

“…There are reports of decreases in soil C with increased grazing intensity (Derner et al, 1997;Frank et al, 1995;Golluscio et al, 2009;Ingram et al, 2008;McSherry & Ritchie, 2013), increases in soil C with increased grazing intensity particularly when light grazing was compared with no grazing (Ganjegunte et al, 2005;Liu et al, 2012;McSherry & Ritchie, 2013) and no difference in soil C regardless of grazing intensity (Kieft, 1994). In particular, seven Australian studies, which compared the impact of grazing management by rotation with continuous grazing on soil C to 0·30 m, detected no difference in soil C stocks (Allen et al, 2013;Chan et al, 2010;Orgill et al, 2014;Pringle et al, 2011;Pringle et al, 2014;Sanderman et al, 2015;Sanjari et al, 2008). Meanwhile, results from the USA showed soil C stocks increased by 8·4 Mg C ha À1 (to 0·50 m) after 25 years of rotational grazing compared with an adjacent continuously grazed pasture (Conant et al, 2003).…”

Multi-scale variability of soil carbon and nitrogen in the middle reaches of the Heihe River basin, northwestern China

“…Anthropogenic activities have been shown to have profound impacts on soil C and TN status in recent decades . As the repository for approximately 60% of the global terrestrial C pool, soil organic matter (SOM) is sensitive to agricultural management such as tillage (Dikgwatlhe et al, 2014;Urioste et al, 2006), fertilization (Su et al, 2006;Yang et al, 2007), land use change (Gami et al, 2009;Post and Kwon, 2000;Wei et al, 2014aWei et al, , 2014b, grazing (Pringle et al, 2014;Silveira et al, 2013) and afforestation and deforestation Zeng et al, 2014). Contradictory results on the impacts of afforestation and land management change on soil C and TN sequestration have been reported Parras-Alcántara et al, 2014;Perez-Quezada et al, 2011;Zeng et al, 2014) due to the dependence on tree types, stand ages, soil properties and depth and previous land uses (Côté et al, 2000;Wei et al, 2012;Zeng et al, 2014).…”