Forest management causes soil carbon loss by reducing particulate organic carbon in Guangxi, Southern China

  Background  The loss of soil organic carbon (SOC) following conversion of natural forests to managed plantations has been widely reported. However, how different SOC fractions and microbial necromass C (MNC) respond to forest management practices remains unclear.

  Methods  We sampled 0–10 ​cm mineral soil from three different management plantations and one protected forest in Guangxi, Southern China, to explore how forest management practices affect SOC through changing mineral-associated C (MAOC) and particulate organic C (POC), as well as fungal and bacterial necromass C.

  Results  Compared with the protected forest, SOC and POC in the abandoned, mixed and Eucalyptus plantations significantly decreased, but MAOC showed no significant change, indicating that the loss of SOC was mainly from decreased POC under forest management. Forest management also significantly reduced root biomass, soil extractable organic C, MNC, and total microbial biomass (measured by phospholipid fatty acid), but increased fungi-to-bacteria ratio (F:B) and soil peroxidase activity. Moreover, POC was positively correlated with root biomass, total microbial biomass and MNC, and negatively with F:B and peroxidase activity. These results suggested that root input and microbial properties together regulated soil POC dynamics during forest management.

  Conclusion  Overall, this study indicates that forest management intervention significantly decreases SOC by reducing POC in Guangxi, Southern China, and suggests that forest protection can help to sequester more soil C in forest ecosystems.