TY - JOUR
T1 - A considerable fraction of soil-respired CO2 is not emitted directly to the atmosphere
AU - Sánchez-Cañete, Enrique P.
AU - Barron-Gafford, Greg A.
AU - Chorover, Jon
N1 - Funding Information:
This project and data were supported by NSF awards 1417101 and 1331408, as well as by the European Commission project DIESEL (FP7-PEOPLE-2013-IOF, 625988) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (IJCI-2016-30822). All data used in this study are freely available (http://criticalzone.org/ catalina-jemez/data/datasets/). The authors wish to thank Rebecca Larkin Minor and Nate Abramson for their careful operation and maintenance of the field measurement devices. The program “Unidades de Excelencia Científica del Plan Propio de Investigación de la Universidad de Granada” funded the cost of this publication.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2018, The Author(s).
PY - 2018/12/1
Y1 - 2018/12/1
N2 - Soil CO2 efflux (Fsoil) is commonly considered equal to soil CO2 production (Rsoil), and both terms are used interchangeably. However, a non-negligible fraction of Rsoil can be consumed in the subsurface due to a host of disparate, yet simultaneous processes. The ratio between CO2 efflux/O2 influx, known as the apparent respiratory quotient (ARQ), enables new insights into CO2 losses from Rsoil not previously captured by Fsoil. We present the first study using continuous ARQ estimates to evaluate annual CO2 losses of carbon produced from Rsoil. We found that up to 1/3 of Rsoil was emitted directly to the atmosphere, whereas 2/3 of Rsoil was removed by subsurface processes. These subsurface losses are attributable to dissolution in water, biological activities and chemical reactions. Having better estimates of Rsoil is key to understanding the true influence of ecosystem production on Rsoil, as well as the role of soil CO2 production in other connected processes within the critical zone.
AB - Soil CO2 efflux (Fsoil) is commonly considered equal to soil CO2 production (Rsoil), and both terms are used interchangeably. However, a non-negligible fraction of Rsoil can be consumed in the subsurface due to a host of disparate, yet simultaneous processes. The ratio between CO2 efflux/O2 influx, known as the apparent respiratory quotient (ARQ), enables new insights into CO2 losses from Rsoil not previously captured by Fsoil. We present the first study using continuous ARQ estimates to evaluate annual CO2 losses of carbon produced from Rsoil. We found that up to 1/3 of Rsoil was emitted directly to the atmosphere, whereas 2/3 of Rsoil was removed by subsurface processes. These subsurface losses are attributable to dissolution in water, biological activities and chemical reactions. Having better estimates of Rsoil is key to understanding the true influence of ecosystem production on Rsoil, as well as the role of soil CO2 production in other connected processes within the critical zone.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41598-018-29803-x
DO - 10.1038/s41598-018-29803-x
M3 - Article
C2 - 30202073
AN - SCOPUS:85053187971
VL - 8
JO - Scientific Reports
JF - Scientific Reports
SN - 2045-2322
IS - 1
M1 - 13518
ER -