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11 - Semi-empirical modelling of the response of soil respiration to environmental factors in laboratory and field conditions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 May 2010

By
Markus Reichstein  and
Ivan A. Janssens
Edited by
Werner L. Kutsch ,
Michael Bahn  and
Andreas Heinemeyer
Werner L. Kutsch
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Biogeochemie, Jena
Michael Bahn
Affiliation:
Leopold-Franzens-Universität Innsbruck, Austria
Andreas Heinemeyer
Affiliation:
Stockholm Environmental Institute, University of York
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Soil respiration, globally 68–80 Pg C y−1, represents the second largest carbon flux between ecosystems and the atmosphere (Schimel et al., 1996; Raich et al., 2002). This is more than ten times the current rate of fossil fuel combustion and indicates that each year around 10% of the atmosphere's CO2 cycles through the soil. Thus, even a small change in soil respiration could significantly intensify – or mitigate – current atmospheric increases of CO2, with potential feedbacks to climate change. Despite this global significance and the considerable scientific commitment to its study over the last decades, there is still limited comprehensive understanding of the factors controlling temporal and across-ecosystem variability of soil respiration.

This understanding is largely hampered by the fact that studies are often conducted and compared at different temporal and spatial scales that are not compatible. Since, particularly in large-scale studies, factors influencing soil respiration often correlate with each other, responses of soil respiration to those factors are confounded and only apparent relationships are obtained.

For the purpose of this chapter, methods (and their associated problems) for analyzing soil respiration data from different scales are reviewed and jointly interpreted with emphasis on the temperature dependence of soil respiration.

MODELLING SOIL RESPIRATION: AN OVERVIEW

General modelling approaches

Soil respiration – defined as the CO2 efflux from the soil surface – originates from the metabolic activity of roots (autotrophic respiration), micro-organisms (bacteria, actinomycetes and fungi) and soil meso- and macro-fauna (heterotrophic respiration).

Type
Chapter
Information
Soil Carbon Dynamics
An Integrated Methodology
 , pp. 207 - 220
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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