SYSTEMATICS: CARBON ISOTOPES IN SOILS
REQUIRED READING
Cerling TE, Quade (1993) Stable carbon and oxygen isotopes in soil
carbonates. In: PK Swart et al. (eds) Climate Change in Continental
Isotopic Records. Geophysical Monographs 78: 217-231
A good review of the controls on C in soil minerals. Getting a little old, but
still probably the clearest and shortest.
Ehleringer JR, Buchmann N, Flanagan LB (2000) Carbon isotope
ratios in belowground carbon cycle processes. Ecological
Applications 10: 412-422
A relatively short review of this subject, which grows ever more complex.
SUPPLEMENTAL READING
Quade J, Cerling TE, Bowman JR (1989) Systematic variations in the
carbon and oxygen isotopic composition of pedogenic carbonate
along elevation transects in the southern Great Basin, United States.
Geological Society of America Bulletin 101: 464-475
A classic paper on controls on carbon isotope values in soil carbonates.
Feng XH, Peterson JC, Quideau SA, Virginia RA, Graham RC, Sonder
LJ, Chadwick OA (1999) Distribution, accumulation, and fluxes of
soil carbon in four monoculture lysimeters at San Dimas
Experimental Forest California. Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta
63: 1319-1333
An early model for soil C turnover as monitored by isotopes.
Torn MS, Lapenis AG, Timofeev A, Fischer ML, Babikov BV, Harden
JW (2002) Organic carbon and carbon isotopes in modern and 100year-old-soil archives of the Russian steppe. Global Change Biology
8: 941-953 (note correction, Torn et al. 2003)
Torn et al. cleverly decide to investigate why organic carbon isotope values
always increase with depth in a soil by looking at old, archived soil material.
By doing this, they take one factor out of play, the recent drop in 13C values
due to fossil fuel burning.
Schweizer M, Fear J, Cadisch G (1999) Isotopic (13C) fractionation
during plant residue decomposition and its implications for soil
organic matter studies. Rapid Communications in Mass
Spectrometry 13: 1284-1290
Study documenting effects of differential decomposition rates of
macromolecules with different isotopic values on soil carbon isotope
budgets.
Wynn JG, Bird MI (2007) C4-derived soil organic carbon decomposes
faster than its C3 counterpart in mixed C3/C4 soils. Global Change
Biology 13: 1-12
C4 plants decompose faster than C3 plants, complicating attempts to study
vegetation shifts from soil organic matter or respired CO2.