LAUSR

Abstract The effective restoration of degraded areas, resulting in the sequestration of significant amounts of soil organic carbon (SOC) and labile soil organic carbon fractions (LOCF), is essential for mitigating global climatic changes. It is therefore important to improve our understanding of the responses and magnitudes of SOC and LOCF during restoration processes in degraded land like karst ecosystems. In this study, we selected four different restoration strategies: (1) not subjected to any management practices, mainly bare land (BL); (2) Pinus yunnanensis plantation (PY), native and characterized by slow growth and high drought resistance; (3) Eucalyptus maideni plantation (EM), non-native and characterized by rapid growth and high adaptability; (4) natural regeneration of secondary forest (SF). The SOC concentrations, SOC stocks, sensitive indicators of LOCF (microbial biomass C (MBC), permanganate oxidizable C (KMnO4-C), dissolved organic C (DOC), water soluble organic C (WSOC)), non-labile C (NLC), and the carbon pool management index (CPMI) were investigated. The different reforestation strategies had significant effects (p