scholarly journals Aboveground production and nutrient circulation along a flooding gradient in a South Carolina Coastal Plain forest

1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (9) ◽  
pp. 1402-1418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marianne K Burke ◽  
B Graeme Lockaby ◽  
William H Conner

Relative to effects of flooding, little is known about the influence of hydrology-nutrient interactions on aboveground net primary production (NPP) in forested wetlands. We found that nutrient circulation and NPP were closely related along a complex physical, chemical, and hydrologic gradient in a bottomland hardwood forest with four distinct communities. Aboveground biomass, NPP, biomass partitioning to stem production, growth efficiency, and soil macronutrient availability were greatest in the flooded zone, possibly because of the stable hydrologic regime. In the wet transition zone, trees were least productive, nutrient use efficiency was highest, and N retranslocation from foliage before abscission was "complete." Wet and dry transition zones had the lowest litterfall quality. Soil organic matter was negatively correlated with extractable NH4-N plus NO3-N before in situ incubations and positively correlated with litterfall lignin/N ratios. Lignin/P and C/N ratios were positively correlated with exchangeable soil Ca and Mg, cation exchange capacity, and clay content and negatively correlated with extractable soil P. We concluded that periodic flooding and associated widely fluctuating soil chemistry resulted in disequilibrium between the plant community and environmental conditions, which led to nutrient deficiency and low NPP in the transition zones compared with the continuously flooded and mesic zones.

1991 ◽  
Vol 21 (10) ◽  
pp. 1533-1543 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan W. Chapman ◽  
Stith T. Gower

Aboveground net primary production, canopy allometry, growth efficiency, and sapwood volume were compared for early- to mid-successional red oak (Quercusrubra L.) and late-successional sugar maple (Acersaccharum Marsh.) co-occurring in young and mature natural stands in southwestern Wisconsin. For similar-diameter trees, shade-tolerant sugar maple supported a significantly greater (p < 0.05) stem, branch, and foliage biomass and leaf area than mid-tolerant red oak. Red oak and sugar maple had similar stem net primary production rates over a 5-year period (1984–1988), but sugar maple had a significantly greater total aboveground net primary production than similar-diameter red oak. However, red oak had a significantly greater (p < 0.0001) growth efficiency (stem net primary production per unit of leaf area) than sugar maple. The significantly greater sapwood volume, but equal stem volume, of sugar maple versus red oak suggests that annual stem maintenance respiration costs may be greater for sugar maple than for red oak. Possible causes for differences in stem net primary production and growth efficiency between early- and late-successional tree species are discussed.


2003 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 395-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Z. Zheng ◽  
L. E. Parent ◽  
J. A. MacLeod

The P dynamics in soils should be quantified in agricultural soils to improve fertilizer P (FP) efficiency while limiting the risk of P transfer from soils to water bodies. This study assessed P transformations following FP addition to Gleysolic soils. A pot experiment was conducted with five soils varying in texture from sandy loam to heavy clay, and receiving four FP rates under barley (Hordeum vulgare L.)-soybean (Glycine max L.) rotations. A modified Hedley procedure was used for soil P fractionation. Soil resin-P and NaHCO3-Pi contents were interactively affected by texture and FP. The NaHCO3-Po, NaOH-Po, HCl-P and H2SO4-P were only affected by soil texture. Proportions of 78 and 90% of the variation in labile and total P were, respectively, related to soil clay content. The FP addition increased resin-P, NaHCO3-Pi and NaOH-Pi and -Po contents in coarse-textured soils, but the amount added was not sufficient to mask the initial influence of soil texture on the sizes of soil P pools. Plant P uptake was proportional to FP rate but less closely linked to clay content. The average increase in labile P per unit of total FP added in excess of plant exports was 0.85, 0.8 2 , 0.73, 0.55 and 0.24 for the sandy loam, loam, clay loam, clay and heavy clay soil, respectively. The results of this study stress the important of considering soil texture in Gleysolic soils when assessing P accumulation and transformations in soils, due to commercial fertilizers applied in excess of crop removal. Key words: P fractions, clay content, fertilizer P, plant P uptake, soil texture


1999 ◽  
Vol 50 (7) ◽  
pp. 1233 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. H. Baker ◽  
P. J. Carter ◽  
V. J. Barrett

The earthworm fauna of pastures in south-eastern Australia is dominated by exotic lumbricid earthworms, in particular the endogeic species, Aporrectodea caliginosa and A. trapezoides. Anecic species such as A. longa are very rare. All 3 species were introduced within cages in 10 pastures on a range of soil types within the region. Five months later, A. longa had generally survived the best and A. trapezoides the worst. The survivals and weights of individual worms varied between sites for all 3 species. The survivals of A. caliginosa and A. longa, and to a lesser extent A. trapezoides, were positively correlated with soil clay content. The weights of A. caliginosa and A. longa, but not A. trapezoides, were positively correlated with soil P content. The survivals and weights of A. longa and A. trapezoides and the weights only of A. caliginosa decreased with increasing inoculation density, suggesting increased intraspecific competition for resources, particularly in the first two species. A. longa reduced the abundance and biomass of the exotic acanthodrilid earthworm, Microscolex dubius, at one site, and the total biomass of 3 native megascolecid species at another, when these latter species occurred as contaminants in A. longa cages. The addition of lime had no effect on the survivals and weights of A. caliginosa, A. longa, and A. trapezoides, although the soils were acid at the sites tested. The addition of sheep dung increased the survival and weights of some species at some sites. Mechanical disturbance of the soil within cages reduced the survivals of A. longa and A. trapezoides. A. longa was released without being caged at 25 sites within one pasture in South Australia. Four years later, it was recovered at all release points. A. longa has the potential to colonise pastures widely throughout the higher rainfall regions of south-eastern Australia.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Ane Dionizio da Silva ◽  
Marcos Heil Costa ◽  
Andrea Almeida Castanho ◽  
Gabrielle Ferreira Pires ◽  
Beatriz Schwantes Marimon ◽  
...  

Abstract. Climate, fire and soil nutritional limitation are important elements that affect the vegetation dynamics in areas of forest-savanna transition. In this paper, we use the dynamic vegetation model INLAND to evaluate the influence of climate variability, fire and phosphorus limitation on the Amazon-Cerrado transitional vegetation structure and dynamics. We assess how each element affects the net primary production, leaf area index and biomass and compare the simulations of aboveground biomass to observed biomass map. We used two climate datasets – the 1960–1990 average seasonal climate and the 1948 to 2008 interannual climate variability, two regional datasets of total soil P content in soil, based on regional (field measurements) and global data and the INLAND fire module. Our results show that climate interannual variability, phosphorus limitation and fire occurrence gradually improve simulated vegetation types and these effects are not homogeneous along the latitudinal/longitudinal gradient showing a synergistic effect among them. In terms of magnitude, the effect of fire is stronger, and is the main driver of vegetation changes along the transition. The nutritional limitation, in turn, is stronger than the effect of climate variability acting on the transitional ecosystems dynamics. Overall, INLAND typically simulates more than 80 % of the biomass variability in the transition zone. However, in many places, the biomass is clearly not well simulated indicating that important soil and physiological factors in the Amazon-Cerrado border, such as lithology and water table depth, carbon allocation strategies and mortality rates, still need to be included in the model.


2003 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 2007-2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
S N Burrows ◽  
S T Gower ◽  
J M Norman ◽  
G Diak ◽  
D S Mackay ◽  
...  

Quantifying forest net primary production (NPP) is critical to understanding the global carbon cycle because forests are responsible for a large portion of the total terrestrial NPP. The objectives of this study were to measure above ground NPP (NPPA) for a land surface in northern Wisconsin, examine the spatial patterns of NPPA and its components, and correlate NPPA with vegetation cover types and leaf area index. Mean NPPA for aspen, hardwoods, mixed forest, upland conifers, nonforested wetlands, and forested wetlands was 7.8, 7.2, 5.7, 4.9, 5.0, and 4.5 t dry mass·ha–1·year–1, respectively. There were significant (p = 0.01) spatial patterns in wood, foliage, and understory NPP components and NPPA (p = 0.03) when the vegetation cover type was included in the model. The spatial range estimates for the three NPP components and NPPA differed significantly from each other, suggesting that different factors are influencing the components of NPP. NPPA was significantly correlated with leaf area index (p = 0.01) for the major vegetation cover types. The mean NPPA for the 3 km × 2 km site was 5.8 t dry mass·ha–1·year–1.


Soil Research ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julia Brenner ◽  
Wesley Porter ◽  
Jana R. Phillips ◽  
Joanne Childs ◽  
Xiaojuan Yang ◽  
...  

Phosphorus (P) availability critically limits the productivity of tropical forests growing on highly weathered, low-P soils. Although efforts to incorporate P into Earth system models (ESMs) provide an opportunity to better estimate tropical forest response to climate change, P sorption dynamics and controls on soil P availability are not well constrained. Here, we measured P and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) sorption isotherms on 23 soils from tropical Oxisol, Ultisol, Inceptisol, Andisol, and Aridisol soils using P concentrations from 10 to 500mg P L−1, and DOC concentrations from 10 to 100mg DOC L−1. Isotherms were fit to the Langmuir equation and parameters were related to soil characteristics. Maximum P sorption capacity (Qmax) was significantly correlated with clay content (ρ=0.658) and aluminium (Al)- or iron (Fe)-oxide concentrations (ρ=0.470 and 0.461 respectively), and the DOC Qmax was correlated with Fe oxides (ρ=0.491). Readily available soil characteristics could eventually be used to estimate Qmax values. Analysis of literature values demonstrated that the maximum initial P concentration added to soils had a significant impact on the resultant Qmax, suggesting that an insufficiently low initial P range could underestimate Qmax. This study improves methods for measuring P Qmax and estimating Qmax in the absence of isotherm analyses and provides key data for use in ESMs.


2015 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 1225-1234 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luciano Colpo Gatiboni ◽  
Thomas Jot Smyth ◽  
Djalma Eugenio Schmitt ◽  
Paulo Cezar Cassol ◽  
Clovisson Menotti Boeira de Oliveira

The State of Santa Catarina, Brazil, has agricultural and livestock activities, such as pig farming, that are responsible for adding large amounts of phosphorus (P) to soils. However, a method is required to evaluate the environmental risk of these high soil P levels. One possible method for evaluating the environmental risk of P fertilization, whether organic or mineral, is to establish threshold levels of soil available P, measured by Mehlich-1 extractions, below which there is not a high risk of P transfer from the soil to surface waters. However, the Mehlich-1 extractant is sensitive to soil clay content, and that factor should be considered when establishing such P-thresholds. The objective of this study was to determine P-thresholds using the Mehlich-1 extractant for soils with different clay contents in the State of Santa Catarina, Brazil. Soil from the B-horizon of an Oxisol with 800 g kg-1 clay was mixed with different amounts of sand to prepare artificial soils with 200, 400, 600, and 800 g kg-1 clay. The artificial soils were incubated for 30 days with moisture content at 80 % of field capacity to stabilize their physicochemical properties, followed by additional incubation for 30 days after liming to raise the pH(H2O) to 6.0. Soil P sorption curves were produced, and the maximum sorption (Pmax) was determined using the Langmuir model for each soil texture evaluated. Based on the Pmax values, seven rates of P were added to four replicates of each soil, and incubated for 20 days more. Following incubation, available P contents (P-Mehlich-1) and P dissolved in the soil solution (P-water) were determined. A change-point value (the P-Mehlich-1 value above which P-water starts increasing sharply) was calculated through the use of segmented equations. The maximum level of P that a soil might safely adsorb (P-threshold) was defined as 80 % of the change-point value to maintain a margin for environmental safety. The P-threshold value, in mg dm-3, was dependent on the soil clay content according to the model P-threshold = 40 + Clay, where the soil clay content is expressed as a percentage. The model was tested in 82 diverse soil samples from the State of Santa Catarina and was able to distinguish samples with high and low environmental risk.


Agronomy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Trevisan ◽  
Alessandro Manoli ◽  
Silvia Quaggiotti

The main challenge to agriculture worldwide is feeding a rapidly growing human population, developing more sustainable agricultural practices that do not threaten human and ecosystem health. An innovative solution relies on the use of biostimulants, as a tool to enhance nutrient use efficiency and crop performances under sub-optimal conditions. In this work a novel biostimulant (APR®, ILSA S.p.A., Arzigano VI, Italy), belonging to the group of protein hydrolysates, was supplied to maize seedlings in hydroponic and its effects were assessed in control conditions and in the presence of three different kinds of stresses (hypoxia, salt and nutrient deficiency) and of their combination. Our results indicate that APR® is soluble and is able to influence root and shoot growth depending on its concentration. Furthermore, its effectiveness is clearly increased in condition of single or combination of abiotic stresses, thus confirming the previously hypothesised action of this substance as enhancer of the response to environmental adversities. Moreover, it also regulates the transcription of a set of genes involved in nitrate transport and ROS metabolism. Further work will be needed to try to transfer this basic knowledge in field experiments.


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