In natural ecosystems, like deciduous and coniferous forests, soil CO2 flux or soil respiration is highly variable and influenced by multiple factors including temperature, precipitation, dissolved soil organic carbon (DOC), dissolved organic matter (DOM), and bacterial and fungal biomass and diversity. However, as the human population continues to grow rapidly, so too do urbanized landscapes with unknown consequences to soil respiration. To determine the extent urbanization influences seasonal shifts in microorganisms and environmental drivers alter soil respiration, we evaluated bacterial and fungal communities, soil physiochemical characteristics, and respiration in forested and urbanizing ecosystems in three watersheds across northern Utah, USA. Based on the next-generation sequencing of the 16s DNA and RNA, we found that montane bacteria were predominantly structured by season while urban bacteria were influenced by degree of urbanization. There was no apparent effect of season on montane fungi, but urban fungal communities followed patterns similar to urban bacterial communities. Bacterial diversity was sensitive to seasonality, especially in montane ecosystems, declining 21-34% from spring to summer and staying relatively low into fall, and fungal diversity was generally depressed in spring. Urban bacterial communities were differentiated by substantially more bacterial taxa with 62 unique OTUs within families structing phylogenetic differences compared with only 18 taxa differentiating montane communities. Similar to bacteria and fungi, DOC and ammonium concentrations fluctuated predominantly by season while these same parameters where highly variable among urban soils among the three watersheds. Structural components of DOM via parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) of fluorescence excitation-emission matrices show varying patterns between montane and urban systems with humic substance resistance to biodegradability found more dominantly in montane systems. Incorporating all soil chemical parameters, daily temperature and moisture, and fungal and bacterial diversity and richness in mixed linear effects models describing daily CO2 over all seasons, we found that a single model best described montane soil respiration, while individual watershed models best described urban respiration. Montane respiration was related to the availability of DOC, different DOM components, and rRNA-based bacterial diversity . Alternatively, urban respiration was influenced by either bacterial diversity and richness in our rapidly urbanizing environment, DOM characteristics and soil O2 in the more agricultural urban soils, or the DOM parameter humification index (HIX) in highly urbanized soils. Our results suggest that urbanization creates distinct bacterial and fungal communities with a single soil biotic or chemical parameter structuring soil respiration, while montane ecosystems select for similar bacterial and fungal communities with respiration sensitive to fluctuations in soil moisture, bacteria and the recalcitrance of carbon (C) resources.

京都大学 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(地球環境学) / 甲第23352号 / 地環博第210号 / 新制||地環||40(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院地球環境学舎地球環境学専攻 / (主査)教授 舟川 晋也, 教授 德地 直子, 准教授 渡邉 哲弘 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Global Environmental Studies / Kyoto University / DFAM

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Crop management practices, such as soil tillage and crop residue management, are land management activities with potentially large impacts on carbon (C) cycling and climate at the global scale. Improvements in crop management practices, such as conservation tillage or 'no-till' (NT), have been proposed as climate change mitigation measures because such practices may alter C cycles through increased sequestration of soil C in agricultural soils. Despite their potential importance, regional to global scale data are lacking for many crop management practices, and few studies have evaluated the potential impact of the full range of crop management practices on C cycling and climate at the global scale. However, monitoring of crop management practices is crucial for assessing spatial variations in management intensity and informing policy decisions. Inclusion of crop management practices in Earth system models used for assessing global climate is a key requirement for evaluating the overall effects of different crop management practices on C cycling and their potential to mitigate climate change. Studies in this dissertation seek to address these issues by: (1) evaluating the efficacy of remote sensing methods for monitoring differences in soil tillage and crop residue management practices in Iowa; (2) incorporating soil tillage practices into an Earth system model and assessing the potential for soil C sequestration and climate change mitigation through adoption of NT practices; (3) assessing the historical impact of including the full range of crop management practices (residue harvest, grain harvest, soil tillage, irrigation, and fertilization) on changes in C cycling associated with land use and land cover change (LULCC) to crops in an Earth system model. The remote sensing study found that performance of the minimum Normalized Difference Tillage Index (minNDTI) method for assessing differences in tillage and residue management was below average compared to previous studies, even when using imagery from both Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2A sensors. Accurate assessment of these practices using minNDTI was hindered by issues with image quality and inability to obtain sufficient cloud-free, time series imagery during the critical planting window. Remote sensing research aimed at obtaining regional to global scale data on tillage and residue management practices is likely to continue to face these issues in the future, but further research should incorporate additional sensors and assess the efficacy of the minNDTI method for multiple locations and years. Adoption of NT practices in the Community Land Model, which is the land component of the Community Earth System Model, resulted in a cumulative soil C sequestration of 6.6 – 14.4 Pg C from 2015 – 2100 under a future climate change scenario (Representative Concentration Pathway 8.5), and cumulative soil C sequestration was equal to approximately one year of present-day fossil fuel emissions. Adjusting for areas where NT is already practiced had minor impacts on cumulative soil C storage, reducing gains in soil C from NT adoption by 0.4 – 0.9 Pg C globally. These results indicate that soil C sequestration and potential for climate change mitigation through NT may be more limited than has been anticipated elsewhere. Soil C sequestration via NT adoption was highest in temperate regions of developed countries with high initial soil C contents, indicating these areas should be targeted for NT adoption. Simulating the full range of crop management practices in the Community Land Model resulted in an increase in C emissions due to LULCC of 29 – 38 Pg C compared to scenarios with generic crops and model defaults. Individual crop management practices with the largest impact on LULCC emissions were crop residue harvest (18 Pg C), followed by grain harvest (9 Pg C) and soil tillage (5 Pg C). Although implementation of crop residue harvest and soil tillage was extreme in this study, these results imply that Earth system models may underestimate emissions from LULCC by excluding the full range of crop management practices. Studies in this dissertation corroborate the importance of crop management practices for C cycling and climate, but further research on these management practices is needed in terms of data collection, improving process-level understanding, and inclusion of these practices in Earth system models. / Doctor of Philosophy

Soil organic matter (SOM) is a well known indicator of soil quality due to its direct influence on soil properties such as structure, soil stability, water availability, cation exchange capacity, nutrient cycling, and pH buffering and amelioration. Study sites were selected in the Valley region of Virginia with the study objectives to: i) compare the efficiency of density solutions used in recovering free-light fraction (FLF) organic matter; ii) compare different soil organic fractions as sensitive indices of short-term changes in SOM due to management practices; iii) investigate on-farm effects of tillage management on soil organic carbon (SOC) and soil organic nitrogen (SON) stocks; and iv) evaluate the role of SOM in controlling soil available nitrogen (N) for corn uptake. The efficiency of the density solutions sodium iodide (NaI) and sodium polytungstate (SPT) in recovering FLF was the same at densities of 1.6 and 1.8 g cm⁻³, with both chemicals presenting less variability at 1.8 g cm⁻³. The sensitivity of SOM fractions in response to crop and soil management depended on the variable tested with particulate organic matter (POM) being the most sensitive when only tillage was tested, and FLF being the most sensitive when crop rotation and cover crop management were added. The on-farm investigation of tillage management on stocks of SOC and total soil N (TSN) indicated significant increases at 0–15 cm depth by increasing the duration (0 to 10 years) of no-tillage (NT) management (0.59 ± 0.14 Mg C ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹ and 0.05 ± 0.02 Mg N ha⁻¹ yr⁻¹). However, duration of NT had no significant effect on SOC and TSN stocks at 0–60 cm depth. Soil available N as controlled by SOM was modeled using corn (<i>Zea mays</i> L.) plant uptake as response and several soil N fractions as explanatory variables. The final model developed for 0–30 cm depth had 6 regressors representing the different SOM pools (active, intermediate, and stable) and a 𝑅² value of 65%. In summary, this study provides information about on-farm management affects on SOM levels; measurement of such effects in the short-term; and estimation of soil available N as related to different soil organic fractions. / Ph. D.

The thinning of loblolly pine plantations has a great potential to influence the fluxes and storage of carbon within managed stands. This study looked at the effects of thinning on aboveground carbon and mineral soil carbon storage, 14-years after the thinning of an 8-year-old loblolly pine plantation on the piedmont of Virginia. The study also examined soil respiration for one year following the second thinning of the same stand at age twenty-two. The study was conducted using three replicate .222 hectare stands planted using 3.05 by 3.05 meter spacing in 1980 at the Reynolds Homestead in Critz, VA. Using two different sample collection methods it was determined that soil carbon was evenly dispersed throughout thinned plots, and that random sampling techniques were adequate for capturing spatial variability. Soil carbon showed a significant negative correlation with soil depth (p=0.0001), and by testing the difference between intercepts in this relationship, it was determined that thinning significantly increased soil carbon by 31.9% across all depths (p=0.0004). However, after accounting for losses in aboveground wood production, thinning resulted in an overall 10% loss in stand carbon storage. However, this analysis did not take into account the fate of wood products following removal. Soil respiration, soil temperature, and soil moisture were measured every month for one year near randomly selected stumps and trees. In order to account for spatial variation, split plots were measured at positions adjacent to stumps and 1.5 meters away from stumps. Soil temperature and moisture were both significantly affected by thinning. Regression analysis was performed to determine significant drivers in soil CO2 efflux. Temperature proved to be the most significant driver of soil respiration, with a positive correlation in thinned and unthinned stands. When modeled using regression, thinning was a significant variable for predicting soil respiration (p < 0.0009), but explained only 3.4% of the variation. The effects of thinning were responsible for decreased respiration, however, when coupled with increased temperatures, soil respiration was elevated in thinned stands. / Master of Science

Soil organic carbon represents the largest constituent of the global C pool and carbon budgets are studied by researchers and modelers in C cycling, global climate change, and soil quality studies. Pedon and soil interpretation record databases are used with soil and ecological maps to estimate regional SOC even though these databases are rarely complete for surface litter and mineral subsurface horizons. The first main objective of the project is to improve the ability to produce soil organic carbon estimates from existing spatial soils datasets, such as STATSGO. All records in the STATSGO Layer table that were incomplete or appeared to be incorrectly filled with a null or zero value were considered invalid. Data sorting procedures and texture lookup tables were used to identify exiting correct (valid) data entries that were used to substitute invalid records. STATSGO soil property data were grouped by soil order, MLRA, layer number, and texture to produce replacement values for all invalid data used to calculate mass SOC. Grouping criteria was specific to each variable and was based on texture designations. The resulting filled and unfilled tables were used with procedures assuming Normal and Lognormal distribution of parameters in order to analyze variation of mass SOC estimates caused by using different computation techniques. We estimated mass SOC to 2 m in Maine and Minnesota using filled and unfilled STATSGO data tables. Up to 54% of the records in Maine and up to 80% of the records in Minnesota contained null or zero values (mostly in fields related to rock fragments) that were replaced. After filling, the database resulted in 1.5 times higher area-weighted SOC. SOC calculated using the Normal distribution assumption were 1.2 to 1.5 times higher than those using the Lognormal transformation. SOC maps using the filled tables had more logical geographic SOC distribution than those using unfilled tables. The USDA Forest Service collects and maintains detailed inventory data for the condition and trends of all forested lands in the United States. A wide range of researchers and landowners use the resulting Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) database for analytical and decision making tasks. FIA data is available to the public in transformed or aggregate format in order to ensure confidentiality of data suppliers. The second main objective of this project was to compute SOC (kg m-2) results by FIA forest type and forest type group for three depth categories (25 cm, 1 m, and 2 m) at a regional scale for the 48 contiguous United States. There were four sets of results derived from the filled STATSGO and FIA datasets for each depth class by region: (1) SOC computed by the Lognormal distribution approach for (1a) all soil orders, (1b) without Histosols; and (2) SOC computed by the Normal distribution approach for (2a) all soil orders, (2b) without Histosols. Two spatial forest cover datasets were relevant to this project, FIA and AVHRR. We investigated the effects of FIA inventory data masking for Maine and Minnesota, such as plot coordinates rounding to the nearest 100 arc-second, and the use of 1 km resolution satellite-derived forest cover classes from AVHRR data, on SOC estimates to 2 m by forest type group. SOC estimates by soil mapping unit were derived from fixed STATSGO database tables and were computed by the Lognormal distribution approach including all soil orders. The methods in this study can be used for a variety of ecological and resource inventory assessments and the automated procedures can be easily updated and improved for future uses. The procedures in this study point out areas that could benefit the most during future revisions of STATSGO. The resulting SOC maps are dynamic and can be rapidly redrawn using GIS whenever STATSGO spatial or tabular data undergo updating. Use of pedon data to define representative values for all properties in all STATSGO layers and correlation of STATSGO layers to soil horizons will lead to vast improvement of the STATSGO Layer table and promote its use for mass SOC estimation over large regions. / Master of Science