Co-regulation of rainfall amount and timing on soil carbon mineralization in a typical salt marsh of the Yellow River Delta, China.

Studying the effects of rainfall regimes such as rainfall amount and timing on soil carbon mineralization is of great importance for our understanding the mechanisms underlying the stability and accumulation of soil carbon in coastal salt marshes. In this study, we examined the responses of soil carbon mineralization (CO and CH fluxes) from undisturbed soil columns to rainfall events in different seasons (dry and wet seasons) with filed experiments in a primary region in the Yellow River Delta salt-marsh wetland, which is far away from the coast and not affected by tides. The results showed that rainfall amount and timing had a significant interaction in affecting soil CO flux rates.