Effects of Vegetation Type and Management Practice on Soil Respiration of Grassland in Northern Japan

Table 2

Descriptive statistics for soil respiration rates, soil temperatures at 1 cm and 5 cm depths, and soil water content at depth of 5 cm in the Zoysia japonica (ZJ), control Miscanthus sinensis (MSc), and intentionally burned M. sinensis (MSb) plots.

	April	May	September
Soil respiration rate (mg CO2 m^−2 h^−1)
ZJ	426.6±78.0a	514.7±93.1a	648.6±146.1a
MSc	338.2±206.6a	484.3±115.8ab	2072.5±545.0b
MSb	341.6±261.0a	584.4±101.1ac	1659.9±271.2c
Soil temperature at depth of 1 cm (°C)
ZJ	12.7±1.3a	20.7±0.9a	24.8±0.8a
MSc	11.4±2.3ab	16.8±1.2b	21.9±0.4b
MSb	10.5±1.3b	24.2±1.7c	21.4±0.4b
Soil temperature at depth of 5 cm (°C)
ZJ	9.4±0.9a	19.3±0.5a	23.1±0.5a
MSc	7.5±0.8b	15.0±0.7b	21.6±0.3b
MSb	7.2±0.6b	19.8±0.7a	21.1±0.2c
Soil water content at depth of 5 cm (%)
ZJ	29.5±3.7a	24.9±3.0a	N.D.
MSc	23.9±6.9b	21.8±6.2a	N.D.
MSb	31.4±4.1a	21.3±4.4a	20.2±5.9

Values represent means ± SD (𝑛=25). Different lowercase letters within the same month indicate a significant difference between plots (Scheffé’s test, 𝛼=0.01,𝑃<0.05). N.D.: no data.