Soil Total Organic Carbon, δ13C Values and Their Responses to the Soil Core Transferring Experiment from High- to Low-elevation Forest along Natural Altitudinal Transect of Old Temperate Volcanic Forest Soils

Soil Total Organic Carbon, δ13C Values and Their Responses to the Soil Core Transferring Experiment from High- to Low-elevation Forest along Natural Altitudinal Transect of Old Temperate Volcanic Forest Soils

In this study, the responses of soil organic carbon and δ13C values to soil warming were conducted by relocating intact soil cores from high- to low-elevation forests for one year along a natural altitudinal transect in the northern slope of Changbai Mountain. As expected, the soil-core relocation caused significant increase in soil temperature but made no significant effect on soil moisture. The results showed that after one year incubation, soil relocation significantly decreased TOC contents, and δ13C decreased. Pearson correlation analysis demonstrates that TOC content was negatively related to soil temperature but positively related to soil moisture. After one-year simulated warming experiment, δ13C values in bulk soils reduced by 0.45 ‰. Furthermore, the decreases in the size fractions andlt;63 μm were larger than those in the size fractions 63-1000 μm.