The evaluation of carbon sequestration at plant's organs and soil characteristics in understory of Zygophyllum atriplicoides and Gymnocarpus decander (Case study: Saleh-Abad, Hormozgan)

The present study was conducted to evaluate the potential of carbon sequestration in plant organs (root, stem and leaf) of Zygophyllum atriplicoides and Gymnocarpus decander and soil at two depths (0-15 and 15-30cm). The experiment was conducted in the Saleh-Abad region, 41km north of Haji-Abad, Bandar-Abbas Hormozgan, Iran, during 2012. Sampling of plant organs was performed by separating the leaf, stem and root. After determining the average dry weight of the study species, the content of organic carbon was calculated for both plant and soil. This study was carried out in two separate factorial experiments arranged using a randomized complete design. The first factor was the type of plant species in both experiments. The second factor was the plant organs in experiment I and different soil depths in experiment II. The results showed that the highest carbon sequestration was obtained at 0-15 cm soil depth. The effects of plant species and plant organs on the content of carbon stored in plant tissues was significant (P ≤0.05) and (P ≤0.01), respectively, while the interaction of those two factors had no significant effect on stored carbon. A significant difference was found between plant organs in terms of stored carbon. In both plants, the highest and lowest content of stored carbon was observed in stem and root, respectively. According to the results, the carbon content stored in Z. atriplicoides (45.09 Kg) was 10.7% more than that of G. decander (40.74 Kg). Overall, the results of this study indicated that the highest carbon sequestration was obtained with Z. atriplicoides in the Saleh-Abad region.