Mass Balance Of ¹³C To Reveal Carbon Budget Under Imitating
Global Warming Treatment At Alpine Meadow Ecosystem
 

Xianfeng Yi*, Yueqin Yang
College of Agronomy, Henan University of Science and Technology, 70#,
Tianjin Road, Jianxi District, Luoyang, Henan Province, 471003, (CHINA)
College of Agriculture, Henan University of Science and Technology, 70#,
Tianjin Road, Jianxi District, Luoyang, Henan province, 471003, (CHINA)

Open-top chamber (OTCs) introduced by International Tundra Experiment(ITEX) were conducted to simulate and determine the possible effects of imitating global warming on ¹³C values of soil organic C and C flux at the Haibei Alpine Meadow Ecosystem Research Station of Chinese Academy of Sciences. The preliminary results indicated that ¹³C values increased with increasing soil depth, however, the contents of organic C decreased. ¹³C values of soil organic C tended to averagely decrease by about 0.99±0.62‰ under the open-top chamber treatments, total organic C was averagely lost by 11.78 mg/g compared with the control. Open-top chamber treatments, which increased air and soil temperatures in plots by about 4 ⁰C and 1⁰C respectively, enhanced decomposition rate of soil organic C (or rate of soil respiration) and primary productivity by 1.446 and 1.035 times respectively. Preliminary data also suggested that open-top chamber treatments would generate a positive feedback, i.e., higher level of CO₂ emission of the alpine meadow to climate warming. The C flux at the alpine meadow ecosystem would remain a net source under the future global warming as revealed by stable carbon isotopic signatures. Stable carbon isotopic technology, which reflects a time-integrated pattern of C flux and neglects short-term variations in CO₂ emission, can be used to evaluate C flux at the alpine meadow.