Environmental controls on density‐based soil organic carbon fractionations in global terrestrial ecosystems

Abstract Categorization of soil organic carbon (SOC) into different functional subpools according to their recalcitrance and protective mechanisms helps better understand ecosystems organic carbon (OC) dynamics, and various attempts have been made to explore the suitable experimental fractionation method for such purpose. However, most previous studies neglected the influences of environmental factors on the effectiveness of varying fractionation methods. Density fractionation has shown great promise in elucidating SOC immobilization mechanisms. Here, we compared three varying types of density fractionation methods (density, density + dispersion, and density + other procedures) for categorizing the SOC into three functional pools, that is, active OC (OC active ), moderately stable OC (OC m‐stable ), and stable OC, (OC stable ) using global data compiled for 95 sites in 31 published studies, and examined the influences of climate (mean annual temperature [MAT] and annual precipitation), vegetation type, and soil properties (soil depth, clay content, and soil type) on SOC fractions determined by the three density fractionation methods. The percentage of OC m‐stable fraction was found to be highest using the density method and lowest using the density + dispersion method, due to differential density ranges between the two methods. At a global scale, the contents of total SOC and its OC fractions decreased with temperature. Precipitation had no apparent influences on the subdivided SOC fractions using either the density + dispersion method or the method of density + other procedures, whereas soil type constrained the effect of precipitation on SOC fractions using the density method. The percentage of OC m‐stable determined by the density + dispersion method was more responsive to MAT and vegetation type than that by the other two methods. The percentage of OC stable determined by the method of density + other procedures was significantly and positively related to the clay content as the OC stable based on this method included small particles. For all the three methods of fractionation, soil type had a greater influence than the clay content on the SOC fractions, especially the OC m‐stable and the OC stable . For soil type characterized by rich metal oxides, both the density method and the method of density + other procedures could be used for SOC fractionation. For soil type rich in nutrients, the density + dispersion method would have higher sensitivity for distinguishing the OC m‐stable .