Comparison of Carbon-Use Efficiency Among Different Land-Use Patterns of the Temperate Steppe in the Northern China Pastoral Farming Ecotone

Yuzhe Li, Jiangwen Fan and Zhongmin Hu
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Yuzhe Li: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Jiangwen Fan: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Zhongmin Hu: School of Geography, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-17

Abstract: Carbon-use efficiency (CUE) is the proportion of gross primary production converted to net primary production. Changes to CUE strongly influence ecosystem carbon budgets and turnover. Little is known about the response of ecosystem CUE to human-induced land-use change, which limits the accurate evaluation of the environmental influence of large-scale steppe-use changes in northern China. We investigated the components of ecosystem carbon exchange and CUE under three typical steppe-use patterns in Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia. The results showed that CUE in grazing and grazing-excluded steppe were not significantly different (both over 0.7) but were significantly higher than in cultivated steppe (0.57). Ecosystem respiration and its components, including autotrophic respiration (Ra), aboveground respiration, heterotrophic respiration and belowground respiration showed significant negative correlation with CUE. Ra is the most important factor explaining the variation of CUE between different steppe-use patterns ( p < 0.001, 97%); Ra change may be the primary factor driving CUE variation between steppe-use patterns. Leaf area index of different grassland-use patterns also showed a significant negative correlation with CUE ( p < 0.001, 91%). These findings may help to improve accurate prediction of the environmental and climatic consequences of large-scale land-use change.

Keywords: farming-pastoral ecozone; land-use pattern; temperate steppe; ecosystem carbon exchange; carbon use efficiency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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