Soil carbon density can increase when Australian savanna is converted to pasture, but may not change under intense cropping systems

SJ Livesley; M Bristow; SP Grover; J Beringer; SK Arndt; LB Hutley

Journal article

Soil carbon density can increase when Australian savanna is converted to pasture, but may not change under intense cropping systems

SJ Livesley, M Bristow, SP Grover, J Beringer, SK Arndt, LB Hutley

Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment | ELSEVIER | Published : 2021

DOI: 10.1016/j.agee.2021.107527

Abstract

Savanna regions are increasingly developed for agriculture to support population growth, food demand and export economies. This is driving interest in the conversion of natural savanna to cattle grazed pastures or horticultural crops in Northern Australia. Savanna clearing leads to aboveground carbon (C) loss but impacts below-ground are less certain as studies have focused on high rainfall regions, low reactive clay soils and shallow depths of 0.3 m or less. To examine impact of land use change (LUC) in Northern Australia, we sampled the upper 1.0 m soil profile of: 1) savanna woodlands, 2) old and young C4 perennial cattle grazed pastures and 3) old and young, melon-sorghum rotation fields..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Stephen Livesley Author

Stefan Arndt Author

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Grants

Awarded by Australian Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Australian Research Council grants LP0774812, LP100100073 and the Discovery Project, grant DP0772981. Support was provided by our partner organisations the Northern Territory Government and the Department of Environmental and Energy, Canberra. We would like to acknowledge the field and laboratory assistance of Bianca Baldiserra, Luke Wiley, Hizbullah Jamali, Susanna Venn, Mick Brand, Amanda Lilleyman and Emma Lupin. We also thank the many land holders in the Daly River catchment and Chris and Bridget Schulz of south Katherine for access to their properties for soil sampling as well as field assistance. Flux tower data was obtained from the Australian Flux Network (OzFlux) data portal that is supported by the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network (TERN).