Soil carbon inventories and delta C-13 along a moisture gradient in Botswana

摘要

We present a study of soil organic carbon (SOC) inventories and delta(13)C values for 625 soil cores collected from well-drained, coarse-textured soils in eight areas along a 1000 km moisture gradient from Southern Botswana, north into southern Zambia. The spatial distribution of trees and grass in the desert, savannah and woodland ecosystems along the transect control large systematic local variations in both SOC inventories and delta(13)C values. A stratified sampling approach was used to smooth this variability and obtain robust weighted-mean estimates for both parameters.