Soil respiration as affected by long-term fencing in a mountain meadow steppe of Central Asia

A better understanding of the responses of various soil respirations to land management is vital for restoring degraded grasslands and mitigating global warming. We used an automated soil respiration system (LI-8100, LI-COR, USA) in 2013 from March to October to assess the effect of fenced and grazed meadows to soil respiration rate. Results showed that the soil respiration rate (SRR) significantly (P<0.01) increased by the fenced management during the growing season (March-October), which ranged from 0.45 μmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹ in October of grazed meadow to 4.01 μmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹ in June of fenced meadow. Compared with grazed meadow, f enced meadow changed the percentages of aboveground biomass, soil temperature and soil water content by 39.55%, -11.03% and 8.42%, respectively. These findings suggested that variation of SRR as af fected by aboveground biomass was s tronger than soil temperature and soil water content. In addition, the scientific and standardized workflows showed that through the field investigation and long-term trials the effectiveness of grazing exclusion, compensatory payments and management in meadow steppe can be assessed in the future.