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Soil resources, microbial activity, and primary production across an agricultural ecosystem

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dc.contributor.authorEllis, Boyd G., author
dc.contributor.authorCrum, James R., author
dc.contributor.authorPaul, Eldor A., author
dc.contributor.authorKlug, Michael J., author
dc.contributor.authorKlingensmith, Katherine M., author
dc.contributor.authorRobertson, G. Philip, author
dc.contributor.authorEcological Society of America, publisher
dc.coverage.spatialMichigan
dc.date.accessioned2007-01-03T06:11:47Z
dc.date.available2007-01-03T06:11:47Z
dc.date.issued1997-02
dc.description.abstractThe degree to which soil resource availability is linked to patterns of microbial activity and plant productivity within ecosystems has important consequences for our understanding of how ecosystems are structured and for the management of systems for agricultural production. We studied this linkage in a 48-ha site in southwest Michigan, USA, that had been cultivated and planted to row crops for decades. Prior to seeding the site to genetically identical soybean plants (Glycine max) in early spring, we removed soil samples from ≈600 locations; plant biomass was harvested from these same locations later in the season. Soil samples were analyzed for physical properties (texture, bulk density), chemical properties (moisture, pH, total C, total N, inorganic N), and biological attributes (microbial biomass, microbial population size, respiration potential, and nitrification and N-mineralization potentials). Plant analyses included biomass and C and N contents. Soil resource variability across this long-cultivated site was remarkably high, as was variability in microbial activity and primary productivity. In almost all cases variability exhibited a strong spatially explicit structure: for most properties and processes > 50% of sample variance was spatially dependent at a scale of 5–60 m. Exceptions included microtopography, soil pH, and inorganic P, which were spatially dependent across the entire 1–1200 m range of separation distances examined in this study, and the culturable-bacteria population, which was not spatially autocorrelated at any scale examined. Both topographic relief and soil pH exhibited strongly nested structures, with autocorrelation occurring within two (topography) or more (pH) distinct ranges. Multiple regression analysis showed surprisingly little correlation between biological processes (soybean productivity, soil N turnover, soil respiration), and static soil properties. The best predictor of soybean biomass at late reproductive stages (r2 = 0.42) was a combination of nitrate N, bulk density, inorganic P, N-mineralization rates, and pH. Overall, results suggest a remarkable degree of spatial variability for a pedogenically homogeneous site that has been plowed and cropped mostly as a single field for > 100 yr. Such variability is likely to be generic to most ecosystems and should be carefully evaluated when making inferences about ecological relationships in these systems and when considering alternative sampling and management strategies.
dc.format.mediumborn digital
dc.format.mediumarticles
dc.identifier.bibliographicCitationRobertson, G. Philip, Katherine M. Klingensmith, Michael J. Klug, Eldor A. Paul, James R. Crum, and Boyd G. Ellis, Soil Resources, Microbial Activity, and Primary Production Across an Agricultural Ecosystem. Ecological Applications 7, no. 1 (February 1997): 158-170. https://dx.doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(1997)007[0158:SRMAAP]2.0.CO;2.
dc.identifier.doihttps://dx.doi.org/10.1890/1051-0761(1997)007[0158:SRMAAP]2.0.CO;2
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10217/81201
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherColorado State University. Libraries
dc.relation.ispartofFaculty Publications
dc.rights©1997 Ecological Society of America.
dc.rightsCopyright and other restrictions may apply. User is responsible for compliance with all applicable laws. For information about copyright law, please see https://libguides.colostate.edu/copyright.
dc.subjectgeostatistics
dc.subjectcropping systems
dc.subjectagricultural systems
dc.subjectkriging
dc.subjectmicrobial biomass
dc.subjectMichigan, USA
dc.subjectsoil biology
dc.subjectsoil chemistry
dc.subjectspatial variability
dc.subjectvariograms
dc.titleSoil resources, microbial activity, and primary production across an agricultural ecosystem
dc.typeText

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