Soil organic carbon fractions and humic substances are affected by land uses of Caatinga forest in Brazil

Abstract

Caatinga is a Brazilian dry ecosystem that occupies around 1 million km² and is one of the largest tropical dry forests of the world. About 46% of the area that was originally covered has been deforested. Land use can cause pronounced reduction in soil carbon stocks that play a major role in the global carbon cycle. The objective of this study was to improve our understanding of the effect of land use on oxidizable carbon fractions, total carbon stocks and humic substances in different layers of soil in a Brazilian semi-arid region. We analyzed soils from tropical dry forest (TDF), forest succession with Anadenanthera falcata (ANA), with Tabebuia alba (TAB), secondary scrubby regeneration (SCR), and non-irrigated maize (MS). Forests showed larger fractions of more labile carbon, except for TDF. The most recalcitrant fraction of carbon stock, humin fraction stock, with the different land use decreased by 38–53% compared to TDF. Oxidizable carbon fractions, carbon stocks, and humic fraction stocks were able to differentiate the successional land uses and agricultural cover from TDF, mainly in the 0–5 cm layer. Our results show that changes in land use, especially with ANA forest succession, showed a larger labile carbon fraction, indicating easy decomposition and loss. Our results provide an alternative tool for the management of deforested areas in tropical dry caatinga ecosystems. This would contribute to the conservation of dry forest systems and could serve as guideline for sustainable management of agriculturally impacted caatinga areas.

Keywords:

• Carbon cycle
• labile carbon
• semi-arid
• total carbon stock
• tropical dry forest

Acknowledgments

We thank fellowships and grants from Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) (306401/2015-0), Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) and Fundação de Amparo a Ciência e Tecnologia de PE (FACEPE) (APQ-0223-5.01/15; APQ-0419-5.01/15) and Financier of Studies and Projects (FINEP) which financed the research, as well as the owner of Buenos Aires Farm (Homem Bom de Magalhães) for allowing us to conduct the research in his property.