Root‐zone enrichment of particulate and nonparticulate organic carbon and nitrogen under grassland management and woodlands across a soil texture gradient in North Carolina, USA

Surface‐soil organic matter accumulation is expected under well‐managed grasslands. Characterizing particulate and nonparticulate organic C and N fractions across a soil texture gradient under different conservation land management systems would help understand how grassland management can optimize soil organic matter to meet the challenges of environmental stress. A cross‐sectional study of 648 soil profiles sampled to 60‐cm depth was conducted under a diversity of grasslands and woodlands in North Carolina, USA. Root‐zone enrichments of particulate organic C and N were calculated as the difference between total and baseline stocks, derived from nonlinear depth distributions of C and N. Particulate organic C and N declined dramatically with depth, representing 35% ± 8% of total organic C at 0–10‐cm depth, 14% ± 7% at 10–30‐cm depth, and 10% ± 6% at 30–60‐cm depth. Sand concentration had a significant negative association with both fractions. Root‐zone enrichment of particulate organic C was lower under grassland than under woodland (14.2 vs. 16.7 Mg C ha −1 , respectively, p  < 0.001), while root‐zone enrichment of particulate organic N was greater under grassland than under woodland (0.96 vs. 0.77 Mg N ha −1 , respectively, p  < 0.001). Root‐zone enrichment of particulate organic C and N was increased by 17%–32% with poultry litter amendment and by 4%–20% in 30‐year‐old pastures compared with newer pastures. Land use and management during the past few decades had a large influence on particulate organic C and N fractions, while pedogenic processes over millennia dominated the nonparticulate organic C and N stocks.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  Grassland Research

• Publication date

  2025-12-14

• Fields of study

  Not labeled

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/glr2.70030
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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