Influence of land use and land cover change on soil organic carbon and microbial activity in the forests of northern Iran

Land-use changes can alter soil carbon (C) contents, and in particular deforestation has been responsible for a large part of the cumulative human-induced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This study aimed to determine the influence of land-use and land cover change on soil organic carbon (SOC) content, microbial biomass C (MBC) and microbial respiration (MR) in the Hyrcanian forests, north of Iran. We compared an agricultural field (AF), plantations of Mnus subcordata (AS), Acer velutinum (AV), Quercus castaneifolia (QC) and Cupressus sempervirens (CS), and a natural forest (NF). Soil samples were collected at three different depths (0-20, 20-40 and 40-60 cm). Results showed that different land covers significantly affected soil characteristics, and SOC increased by 25% and 1.11% after the conversion of NF to CS and AS plantations respectively, and decreased by 4%, 12.11% and 53% when NF was converted to QC, AV and AF respectively. In all treatments, MBC and MR were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the 0-20 cm depth, and MR was also correlated positively with MBC and SOC. Microbial biomass was near the half in the agriculture field than in plantations and natural forest in the upper layer, but the effects of land use on microbial biomass C decreased with soil depth. However, we observed considerable amounts microbial biomass C in 40-60 cm depth. Also, results showed that topographical feature, altitude and slope, will affect SOC content. Our results indicated that forest plantation is a key measure to enhance SOC content and mitigate global CO2 emission, especially when soils are degraded and have low soil C content. In particular, afforestation had a crucial effect on elevating SOC content in the Hyrcanian forest, but plantations of oak (QC) and maple (AV) were less effective in terms of soil C increase.