Soil microbial biomass C and N along a climatic transect in the Mongolian steppe

The relationships of soil microbial biomass C (C_mic) or N (N_mic) with mean annual precipitation and temperature were studied along a climatic transect in the Mongolian steppe. Soil organic C (C_org) and total N (N_t), respiration rate, C_mic and N_mic at depths of 0–5 and 5–10 cm decreased with increasing aridity. The contents of C_org and N_t in the 0- to 5-cm soil layers decreased linearly with precipitation reduction along the transect. C_mic and N_mic changes with precipitation were not linear, with higher changes between 330 and 128 mm mean annual precipitation. C_mic/C_org and N_mic/N_t increased with increasing aridity. The metabolic quotient qCO₂ of 0- to 5-cm soil layers was low between 330 and 273 mm precipitation. The relationship between the qCO₂ of the 0- to 5-cm soil layers and the mean annual precipitation was well fitted with a quadratic function y =0.0006x² –0.40x +86.0, where y is the qCO₂ (µmol CO₂-C mmol^–1 C_mic) and x is the mean annual precipitation (mm). C_org, N_t, C_mic, N_mic and respiration rate decreased exponentially with increasing mean annual temperature in both the 0- to 5- and 5- to 10-cm soil layers, and change rate was lower when the mean annual temperature was higher than 2.6°C. The close relationships of the mean annual precipitation or temperature with soil C_org, N_t, C_mic, N_mic, C_mic/C_org and qCO₂ indicate that each parameter can be calculated by determining the other parameters in this specific climatic range.