Search results for " particle-size fraction"

Paired-site approach for studying soil organic carbon dynamics in a Mediterranean semiarid environment

2012

This work investigated the effects of land cover and land-use change (LUC) on the ability of a soil to store carbon (C) and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, in a Mediterranean area. Using a paired-site approach, we estimated the effect of land-cover change on the C stock from 1972 to 2008 in a natural reserve (Grotta di Santa Ninfa) in western Sicily. We selected 15 paired sites representative of five LUCs. We studied the effect of land use on soil organic C (SOC) content in bulk soil and in different particle-size fractions (2000–1000 µm, 1000–500 µm, 500–250 µm, 250–63 µm, 63–25 µm, and <25 µm). Laboratory incubation of the soil samples was conducted to measure CO2 evolution in bulk…