Topography modifies the effect of land‐use change on soil respiration: A meta‐analysis

Abstract

Soil respiration is controlled by land‐use changes associated with cropland vegetation restoration, and this can vary with topography, although the magnitude of this effect and the underlying mechanisms are still unclear. We synthesized 69 recently published papers from China to explore the influence of topography‐related changes in land use on soil respiration where croplands were converted into orchards (abbreviated as C‐O), grasslands (abbreviated as C‐G), or woodlands (abbreviated as C‐W). Our results showed that not only did land‐use change have a significant influence on soil respiration, but this varied with topography. While C‐O resulted in a decrease in soil respiration by, on average, 3.1%, both the magnitude and sign of the change varied with topography, with an 8.2% increase for flat areas and a 14.7% decrease for slopes. For the C‐G conversions, soil respiration increased, on average, by 21.4%, with a 19.5% and a 24.3% increase for flat and slope topography, respectively. For C‐W, soil respiration increased, on average, by 28.0%, with only a 1.6% increase for flat areas, but a 39.9% increase for slopes. Soil temperature, soil moisture, root biomass, soil organic carbon (SOC), soil microbial biomass carbon (MBC), soil carbon‐to‐nitrogen ratio (C:N ratio), and soil density also varied with topography, with larger changes for slopes than for flat topography. Increases in soil respiration associated with different topography were closely related to changes in soil temperature, SOC, MBC, and root biomass (P < 0.05), but were not correlated with changes in soil moisture, C:N ratio, or soil density (P > 0.05). The contribution of different drivers to the change in soil respiration under different topographical conditions showed a trend of SOC > root biomass > MBC > soil temperature. Based on these results, topography‐related variations in soil respiration need to be accounted for when quantifying the impact of land‐use change in C budgets.

Twenty Years of Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities in Measuring and Understanding Soil Respiration

“…Zhang et al, 2020), vegetation (X. Chen & Chen, 2019;Y. Zhang et al, 2021), microplastics (X. , metallic nanoparticles (He et al, 2024), and acid rain (Feng et al, 2017) are not shown.…”

“…Additional columns give the number of experimental pairs ( N ) and range of study durations (years) in each meta‐analysis. Meta‐analyses of more rarely examined factors such as fire (Gui et al., 2023; M. Hu et al., 2020), phosphorous (Feng & Zhu, 2019; X. Lu et al., 2022), topography (Y. Zhang et al., 2021), litter inputs (X. Chen & Chen, 2018; Y. Zhang et al., 2020), vegetation (X. Chen & Chen, 2019; Y. Zhang et al., 2021), microplastics (X. Liu et al., 2023), metallic nanoparticles (He et al., 2024), and acid rain (Feng et al., 2017) are not shown.…”

Spatial heterogeneity and influence mechanisms on soil respiration in an old-growth tropical montane rainforest with complex terrain

“…In fact, spatial heterogeneity of SR was influenced by various soil factors, such as soil nutrient availability (Liang et al, 2021;Xiao et al, 2021), soil C/nitrogen (N)ratio (Cui et al, 2021), soil moisture and temperature (Numa et al, 2021). Moreover, soil topography was regarded as the main factor that was involved the induction of spatial variation of SR (Zhang et al, 2021). Topography, generated a local microclimate, led to variations in soil drainage and SOC distribution, and a change in the soil moisture and temperature, which directly influenced SR (Kang et al, 2003).…”

Spatial Scale Effects of Soil Respiration in Arid Desert Tugai Forest: Responses to Plant Functional Traits and Soil Abiotic Factors

“…At the global scale, Rs has obvious zonal characteristics that are mainly affected by zonal changes in vegetation and climate [8,9]. At the regional scale, landscape [10,11], land use type [12,13], and vegetation type [14,15] affected Rs. At the plot scale, stand and canopy structure [16,17], root distribution [18], and the heterogeneity of major environmental factors and soil characteristics [19] lead to the spatial heterogeneity of Rs [20,21].…”