Abstract
Purpose
In agroforestry systems, the root distributions and properties of the annual and perennial vegetation are poorly known, although they are recognized for fostering soil carbon (C) stocks through annual root-derived C inputs and by altering microbial activity. This study aimed to evaluate the potential contribution of roots from the understory vegetation strip (UVS) and the crop to top- and subsoil C stocks (0–100 cm) to a 3-year-old agroforestry system of the alley-cropping type.
Methods
Root biomass, chemical composition, functional traits and anatomical structure were assessed in parallel to a characterization of soil physicochemical and microbiological properties, including enzymatic activity, at different depths and locations perpendicular to the tree line.
Results
The root biomass and properties were heterogeneous in the young alley-cropping system due to the presence of different plant communities and the heterogeneity of the soil mineral N content according to the location perpendicular to the tree line. The soil microbiological properties and organic C stocks did not vary horizontally at this stage of agroforestry but should be monitored through multiple-time samples to confirm a differentiation in subsequent years suggested by the tight link between root stoichiometry and microbial extracellular enzymatic activities that we found.
Conclusions
Altogether, our results suggested that increasing the root biomass in topsoil in agroforestry systems positively contributes to increasing soil organic C stocks, but in deeper soil layers, an increase in litter inputs with a high C:N ratio might accentuate microbial N limitations and limit soil C storage.
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Abbreviations
- UVS:
-
Understory vegetation strip
- C:
-
Carbon
- N:
-
Nitrogen
- P:
-
Phosphorus
- CaCO3 :
-
Calcium carbonate
- NH4 + :
-
Ammonium ions
- NO3 − :
-
Nitrate ions
- HNO3 :
-
Nitric acid
- MB C and N:
-
Microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen
- BG:
-
β-1,4 Glucosidase
- CBH:
-
Cellulobiohydrolase
- NAG:
-
β-1,4-N-acetyl-glucosaminidase
- LAP:
-
Leucine aminopeptidase
- AP:
-
Alkaline phosphate
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Acknowledgements
The experimental site used for this work was maintained by UE Diascope (Mauguio, France), and the authors are particularly grateful to Sebastien Rey for his management of the plots. The authors would like to thank Olivier Huttel (LISAH), Christelle Baptiste and Matthieu Dejean (PHIV), Laurie Amenc, Didier Arnal, Didier Blavet, Michel Brossard, Remi Dugue, Maxime Duthoit, Aicha Gueye, Anne-Laure Pablo, Aline Personne, Nancy Rakotondrazafy, Alain Rocheteau, Carlos Trives-Segura, and Solenn Tuffigo (Eco&Sols) for helping in the field and laboratory work. We would like to thank Jérôme Ngao for his valuable comments prior to submission.
Funding
This work was part of a PhD funded by TOTAL and Agropolis Foundations through the DSCATT project (N◦ AF1802-01, N◦ FTC002181) and INRAE (department AgroEcoSystem).
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The study was conceived and designed by Christophe Jourdan, Isabelle Bertrand and Lorène Siegwart. The data collection was realized by Christophe Jourdan, Isabelle Bertrand, Soh Sugihara, Karel Van den Meersche and Lorène Siegwart. Data analysis was performed by Gabin Piton and Lorène Siegwart. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Lorène Siegwart, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Siegwart, L., Jourdan, C., Piton, G. et al. Root distribution and properties of a young alley-cropping system: effects on soil carbon storage and microbial activity. Plant Soil 482, 601–625 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05714-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05714-9