Potential impacts of climate change on carbon dynamics in a rain-fed agro-ecosystem on the Loess Plateau of China

摘要

Although many studies have been conducted on crop yield in rain-fed agriculture, the possible impacts of climate change on the carbon (C) dynamics of rain-fed rotation systems, particularly their direction and magnitude at the long-term scale, are still poorly understood. In this study, the sensitivity of C dynamics of a typical rotation system to elevated CO_2 and changed temperature and precipitation were first tested using the CENTURY model, based on data collected from a 30-year field experiment of a corn-wheat-wheat-millet (CWWM) rotation system in the tableland of the Loess Plateau. The possible responses of crop biomass C and soil organic C (SOC) accumulation were then evaluated under scenarios representing the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 and 8.5. The results indicated that elevated CO_2 and increased precipitation exerted positive effect on biomass C in CWWM rotation system, while increasing the temperature by 1 ℃, 2 ℃ and 4 ℃ had negative effects on biomass C due to opposite responses of corn and winter wheat to warming. SOC accumulation was enhanced by increased CO_2 concentration and precipitation but impaired by increased temperature. Under future RCP scenarios with dynamic CO_2, the biomass C of corn exhibited decrease during the period of 2046-2075 under RCP4.5 and the period of 2016-2075 under RCP8.5 due to reduced precipitation and a warmer climate. In contrast, winter wheat would benefit from increased CO_2 and temperature and was projected to have larger biomass C under both RCP scenarios. Although the climate condition had large differences between RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, the projected SOC had similar trends under two scenarios due to CO_2 fertilizer effect and precipitation fluctuation. These results implied that crop biomass C and SOC accumulation in a warmer environment are strongly related to precipitation, and increase in field water storage should be emphasized in coping with future climate.