Summary
A network of long-term experiments in North America was organized to develop a regionalized database for evaluating environmental and management controls on soil organic matter and to assess the potential for C sequestration in agroecosystems. The network is comprised of 39 field experiments at 33 locations, concentrated in the Great Plains region of the U.S. and Canada and the U.S. corn belt. Historical data on climate, productivity, soils and management have been compiled for the sites. An extensive cross-site sampling of soils and analysis of soil organic matter fractions has been carried out for most of the sites. Information from the long-term experiments is being used to support a wide variety of research, ranging from detailed process studies to large-scale model-based assessments of agroecosystem C balances and CO2 mitigation strategies. Networks of existing long-term experiments can play an important role in ecosystem and global change research.
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Paustian, K., Elliott, E.T., Paul, E.A., Collins, H.P., Cole, C.V., Frey, S.D. (1996). The North American Site Network. In: Powlson, D.S., Smith, P., Smith, J.U. (eds) Evaluation of Soil Organic Matter Models. NATO ASI Series, vol 38. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61094-3_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-61094-3_4
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