Relative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)

Alpine pastures are agricultural systems with a high provision of ecosystem services, which include carbon (C) stocking. Particularly, the soil organic C (SOC) stocks of Alpine pastures may play a pivotal role in counteracting global climate change. Even if the importance of pasture SOC has been sta...

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Autores principales:	Simone Ravetto Enri, Fabio Petrella, Fabrizio Ungaro, Laura Zavattaro, Andrea Mainetti, Giampiero Lombardi, Michele Lonati
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	MDPI AG 2021
Materias:	grassland elevation forage mountain pH precipitation Agriculture (General) S1-972
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/629de4f270e940fc95c7e2cd73b02f5c
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:629de4f270e940fc95c7e2cd73b02f5c2021-11-25T15:58:13ZRelative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)10.3390/agriculture111110472077-0472https://doaj.org/article/629de4f270e940fc95c7e2cd73b02f5c2021-10-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/11/11/1047https://doaj.org/toc/2077-0472Alpine pastures are agricultural systems with a high provision of ecosystem services, which include carbon (C) stocking. Particularly, the soil organic C (SOC) stocks of Alpine pastures may play a pivotal role in counteracting global climate change. Even if the importance of pasture SOC has been stated by several research studies, especially by comparing different land uses, little is known about the role of plant species composition. We studied a wide sample of 324 pastures in the north-western Italian Alps by performing coupled vegetation and soil surveys. Climatic (i.e., mean annual precipitation), topographic (i.e., elevation, slope, southness), vegetation (i.e., the first three dimensions of a non-metric multid imensional scaling—NMDS), and soil (i.e., pH) parameters were considered as independent variables in a generalised linear model accounting for SOC stocks in the 0–30 cm depth. Pasture SOC was significantly affected by precipitation (positively) and by pH (negatively) but not by topography. However, the higher influence was exerted by vegetation through the first NMDS dimension, which depicted a change in plant species along a thermic-altitudinal gradient. Our research highlighted the remarkable importance of vegetation in regulating SOC stocks in Alpine pastures, confirming the pivotal role of these semi-natural agricultural systems in the global scenario of climate change.Simone Ravetto EnriFabio PetrellaFabrizio UngaroLaura ZavattaroAndrea MainettiGiampiero LombardiMichele LonatiMDPI AGarticlegrasslandelevationforagemountainpHprecipitationAgriculture (General)S1-972ENAgriculture, Vol 11, Iss 1047, p 1047 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	grassland elevation forage mountain pH precipitation Agriculture (General) S1-972
spellingShingle	grassland elevation forage mountain pH precipitation Agriculture (General) S1-972 Simone Ravetto Enri Fabio Petrella Fabrizio Ungaro Laura Zavattaro Andrea Mainetti Giampiero Lombardi Michele Lonati Relative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)
description	Alpine pastures are agricultural systems with a high provision of ecosystem services, which include carbon (C) stocking. Particularly, the soil organic C (SOC) stocks of Alpine pastures may play a pivotal role in counteracting global climate change. Even if the importance of pasture SOC has been stated by several research studies, especially by comparing different land uses, little is known about the role of plant species composition. We studied a wide sample of 324 pastures in the north-western Italian Alps by performing coupled vegetation and soil surveys. Climatic (i.e., mean annual precipitation), topographic (i.e., elevation, slope, southness), vegetation (i.e., the first three dimensions of a non-metric multid imensional scaling—NMDS), and soil (i.e., pH) parameters were considered as independent variables in a generalised linear model accounting for SOC stocks in the 0–30 cm depth. Pasture SOC was significantly affected by precipitation (positively) and by pH (negatively) but not by topography. However, the higher influence was exerted by vegetation through the first NMDS dimension, which depicted a change in plant species along a thermic-altitudinal gradient. Our research highlighted the remarkable importance of vegetation in regulating SOC stocks in Alpine pastures, confirming the pivotal role of these semi-natural agricultural systems in the global scenario of climate change.
format	article
author	Simone Ravetto Enri Fabio Petrella Fabrizio Ungaro Laura Zavattaro Andrea Mainetti Giampiero Lombardi Michele Lonati
author_facet	Simone Ravetto Enri Fabio Petrella Fabrizio Ungaro Laura Zavattaro Andrea Mainetti Giampiero Lombardi Michele Lonati
author_sort	Simone Ravetto Enri
title	Relative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)
title_short	Relative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)
title_full	Relative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)
title_fullStr	Relative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)
title_full_unstemmed	Relative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)
title_sort	relative importance of plant species composition and environmental factors in affecting soil carbon stocks of alpine pastures (nw italy)
publisher	MDPI AG
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/629de4f270e940fc95c7e2cd73b02f5c
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_version_	1718413382493667328

Relative Importance of Plant Species Composition and Environmental Factors in Affecting Soil Carbon Stocks of Alpine Pastures (NW Italy)

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