Soil organic carbon (SOC) mineralization is essential for nutrient cycling; however, it also increases carbon emission as CO₂ to the atmosphere (CO₂-C). Therefore, detailed information is required to design land use practices promoting positive C balances and soil health. Short-term SOC mineralization is sensitive to soil properties. Short-term soil C mineralization at a landscape scale has been poorly describe, despite the need to understand the variability of C dynamics among environments. The objectives of this work were to 1) estimate the parameters of short-term soil C mineralization kinetics in different locations within a region and 2) explore correlations among site-specific kinetic parameters and edaphoclimatic properties of sampled sites. The study involved 150 sites with different soil and climatic characteristics sampled from a 165,000 km² area in central Argentina. CO₂-C data were obtained from 28-day laboratory incubation experiments of the 150 soil samples. We tested three models (exponential, hyperbolic and power), which depend non-linearly on their parameters, to describe the population average cumulative CO₂-C. Using nonlinear mixed models, we tested the significance of random site effects to explain variability in curve parameters among soils. Random forest was used to explain C mineralization parameters from edaphoclimatic properties. The best fit was provided by the power model with random effects on two parameters: initial C mineralization rate and mineralization rate coefficient. The results indicate heterogeneous C mineralization processes across central Argentina. The observed cumulative CO₂-C after 28 days of soil incubation ranged between 250 and 1693 mg C kg⁻¹ soil with an average of 826 mg C kg soil⁻¹. Lower amounts of CO₂-C (800 mg C kg⁻¹ soil) are expected at 28 days of mineralization in sandy loam soils with lower organic matter than in rich loam soils (more than 1000 mg C kg⁻¹ soil). A relational study explaining site-specific C mineralization from soil, climatic and management variables indicated a significantly higher short-term C mineralization in soils with high organic matter and soil chemical fertility, with soil properties being more important process drivers than climatic variables. Thus, short-term C mineralization kinetics can be predicted from soil properties at the large scale.

土壤有机碳 (SOC) 矿化对于养分循环至关重要；然而，它也增加了碳排放，因为 CO ₂排放到大气中（CO ₂-C）。因此，需要详细信息来设计促进正碳平衡和土壤健康的土地利用实践。短期 SOC 矿化对土壤性质很敏感。尽管需要了解环境之间 C 动态的变化，但景观尺度的短期土壤 C 矿化一直没有得到很好的描述。这项工作的目标是 1) 估计一个区域内不同位置的短期土壤 C 矿化动力学参数和 2) 探索特定地点动力学参数与采样地点的土壤气候特性之间的相关性。该研究涉及从阿根廷中部165,000 km ²区域采样的具有不同土壤和气候特征的 150 个地点。CO ₂-C 数据是从 150 个土壤样品的 28 天实验室孵化实验中获得的。我们测试了三个模型（指数、双曲线和幂），它们非线性地依赖于它们的参数，以描述总体平均累积 CO ₂ -C。使用非线性混合模型，我们测试了随机场地效应的显着性，以解释土壤曲线参数的可变性。随机森林用于从土壤气候特性解释 C 矿化参数。最佳拟合是由对两个参数随机影响的幂模型提供的：初始 C 矿化速率和矿化速率系数。结果表明整个阿根廷中部的非均质 C 矿化过程。观测到的累积 CO ₂土壤培养 28 天后的 -C 范围在 250 和 1693 毫克 C kg ^-1土壤之间，平均为 826 毫克 C kg 土壤^-1。较低量的CO ₂ -C（800毫克ç千克^-1土），预计在矿化砂壤土土壤具有较低有机物28天比富裕壤土（超过1000毫克Ç千克^-1土壤）。一项从土壤、气候和管理变量解释特定地点碳矿化的相关研究表明，在有机质和土壤化学肥力高的土壤中，短期碳矿化显着更高，土壤特性是比气候变量更重要的过程驱动因素。因此，可以从大规模的土壤性质预测短期 C 矿化动力学。