scholarly journals A Stand-Level Comparison of Carbon and Nitrogen Distribution in an Exotic Japanese Cedar Plantation and a Natural Oak Stand

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 963
Author(s):  
Gyeongwon Baek ◽  
Eun-Ji Bae ◽  
Choonsig Kim

This study compared carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) distribution at a stand level in an exotic Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica D. Don) plantation and a natural Serrata oak (Quercus serrata Murray) stand growing under similar site conditions in South Korea. The aboveground biomass (stems, branches, and leaves) of 20 trees (10 of each species), the forest floor, and the mineral soils to a depth of 30 cm were sampled to determine C and N concentrations. Except in branches, C concentrations were significantly higher (p < 0.05) in the Japanese cedar plantation than in the Serrata oak stand, whereas N concentrations, except in the stem bark, were significantly lower in the Japanese cedar plantation. Reforestation with an exotic coniferous species significantly increased the C stocks in the aboveground biomass and the N stocks in the forest floor and mineral soils compared with a natural oak stand. The N stocks in the aboveground biomass were dependent on either the N concentrations or the C stocks in the tree components, whereas soil C and N stocks were negatively related to soil fertility parameters such as C/N ratio. Although it is uncertain which factors are responsible for the difference in aboveground C and soil N stocks following the establishment of Japanese cedar plantations on former natural Serrata oak stands, tree replacement may have an impact on C and N allocation within different forest compartments.

2016 ◽  
Vol 46 (12) ◽  
pp. 1459-1473 ◽  
Author(s):  
Line Tau Strand ◽  
Ingeborg Callesen ◽  
Lise Dalsgaard ◽  
Heleen A. de Wit

Relationships between soil C and N stocks and soil formation, climate, and vegetation were investigated in a gridded database connected to the National Forest Inventory in Norway. For mineral soil orders, C and N stocks were estimated to be 11.1–19.3 kg C·m−2 and 0.41–0.78 kg N·m−2, respectively, declining in the following order: Gleysols > Podzols > Brunisols > Regosols. Organic peat-type soils stored, on average, 31.3 kg C·m−2 and 1.10 kg N·m−2, whereas shallow Organic folisols stored, on average, 10.2 kg C·m−2 and 0.34 kg N·m−2. For Norway’s 120 000 km2 of forest, the total of soil C stocks was estimated to be 1.83 Gt C, with a 95% CI of 1.71–1.95 Gt C. Podzolic soils comprise the largest soil group and store approximately 50% of the forest soil C. Sixty percent of the soil C stock in Podzolic soils was stored in the mineral soil, increasing with temperature and precipitation. Poorly drained soil types store approximately 47% of the total forest soil C in Norway. Soils with water saturation have large C stocks mainly in the forest floor, suggesting that they are more susceptible to forest management and environmental change. Soil C stocks under pine and spruce forests were similar, although pine forests had larger C stocks in the forest floor, while spruce forests had the highest C stocks in the mineral soil compartment. C stocks in the forest floor increase from dry to moist ground vegetation, while ground vegetation nutrient classes reflect better the C and N stocks in the mineral soil.


Soil Research ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 83 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. E. Cotching

Soil carbon (C) stocks were calculated for Tasmanian soil orders to 0.3 and 1.0 m depth from existing datasets. Tasmanian soils have C stocks of 49–117 Mg C/ha in the upper 0.3 m, with Ferrosols having the largest soil C stocks. Mean soil C stocks in agricultural soils were significantly lower under intensive cropping than under irrigated pasture. The range in soil C within soil orders indicates that it is critical to determine initial soil C stocks at individual sites and farms for C accounting and trading purposes, because the initial soil C content will determine if current or changed management practices are likely to result in soil C sequestration or emission. The distribution of C within the profile was significantly different between agricultural and forested land, with agricultural soils having two-thirds of their soil C in the upper 0.3 m, compared with half for forested soils. The difference in this proportion between agricultural and forested land was largest in Dermosols (0.72 v. 0.47). The total amount of soil C in a soil to 1.0 m depth may not change with a change in land use, but the distribution can and any change in soil C deeper in the profile might affect how soil C can be managed for sequestration. Tasmanian soil C stocks are significantly greater than those in mainland states of Australia, reflecting the lower mean annual temperature and higher precipitation in Tasmania, which result in less oxidation of soil organic matter.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mbezele Junior Yannick Ngaba ◽  
Ya-Lin Hu ◽  
Roland Bol ◽  
Xiang-Qing Ma ◽  
Shao-Fei Jin ◽  
...  

Abstract Soil C and N turnover rates and contents are strongly influenced by climates (e.g., mean annual temperature MAT, and mean annual precipitation MAP) as well as human activities. However, the effects of converting natural forests to intensively human-managed plantations on soil carbon (C), nitrogen (N) dynamics across various climatic zones are not well known. In this study, we evaluated C, N pool and natural abundances of δ13C and δ15N in forest floor layer and 1-meter depth mineral soils under natural forests (NF) and plantation forest (PF) at six sites in eastern China. Our results showed that forest floor had higher C contents and lower N contents in PF compared to NF, resulting in high forest floor C/N ratios and a decrease in the quality of organic materials in forest floor under plantations. In general, soil C, N contents and their isotope changed significantly in the forest floor and mineral soil after land use change (LUC). Soil δ13C was significantly enriched in forest floor after LUC while both δ13C and δ15N values were enriched in mineral soils. Linear and non-linear regressions were observed for MAP and MAT in soil C/N ratios and soil δ13C, in their changes with NF conversion to PF while soil δ15N values were positively correlated with MAT. Our findings implied that LUC alters soil C turnover and contents and MAP drive soil δ13C dynamic.


Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 181
Author(s):  
John R. Butnor ◽  
Kurt H. Johnsen ◽  
Christopher A. Maier ◽  
C. Dana Nelson

Prescribed fire is an essential tool that is widely used for longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) stand management; periodic burning serves to reduce competition from woody shrubs and fire-intolerant trees and enhance herbaceous diversity. Low-intensity, prescribed burning is thought to have minimal long-term impact on soil chemistry in southern pine forests, although few studies report the intra-annual variation in soil chemistry after burning. We monitored changes in C, N, oxidation resistant C (CR), pH and elemental nutrients in the forest floor and soil (0–5, 5–10 cm depths) before and after burning (1, 3, 6, 12 months) in a mature longleaf pine plantation at the Harrison Experimental Forest, near Saucier, Mississippi. Prescribed fire consumed much of the forest floor (11.3 Mg ha−1; −69%), increased soil pH and caused a pulse of C, N and elemental nutrients to flow to the near surface soils. In the initial one to three months post-burn coinciding with the start of the growing season, retention of nutrients by soil peaked. Most of the N (93%), Ca (88%), K (96%) and Mg (101%), roughly half of the P (48%) and Mn (52%) and 25% of the C lost from the forest floor were detected in the soil and apparently not lost to volatilization. By month 12, soil C and N pools were not different at depths of 0–5 cm but declined significantly below pre-burn levels at depths of 5–10 cm, C −36% (p < 0.0001), N −26% (p = 0.003), contrary to other examples in southern pine ecosystems. In the upper 5 cm of soil, only Cu (−49%) remained significantly lower than pre-burn contents by month 12, at depths of 5–10 cm, Cu (−76%), Fe (−22%), K (−51%), Mg (−57%), Mn (−82%) and P (−52%) remain lower at month 12 than pre-burn contents. Burning did not increase soil CR content, conversely significant declines in CR occurred. It appears that recovery of soil C and N pools post-burn will require more time on this site than other southern pine forests.


2007 ◽  
Vol 87 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-102 ◽  
Author(s):  
J M Kranabetter ◽  
A M Macadam

The extent of carbon (C) storage in forests and the change in C stocks after harvesting are important considerations in the management of greenhouse gases. We measured changes in C storage over time (from postharvest, postburn, year 5, year 10 and year 20) in logging slash, forest floors, mineral soils and planted lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) trees from six prescribed-burn plantations in north central British Columbia. After harvest, site C in these pools averaged 139 Mg ha-1, with approximately equal contributions from mineral soils (0–30 cm), forest floors and logging slash. Together these detrital pools declined by 71 Mg C ha-1, or 51% (28% directly from the broadcast burn, and a further 23% postburn), in the subsequent 20 yr. Postburn decay in logging slash was inferred by reductions in wood density (from 0.40 to 0.34 g cm-3), equal to an average k rate of 0.011 yr-1. Losses in forest floor C, amounting to more than 60% of the initial mass, were immediate and continued to year 5, with no reaccumulation evident by year 20. Mineral soil C concentrations initially fluctuated before declining by 25% through years 10 and 20. Overall, the reductions in C storage were offset by biomass accumulation of lodgepole pine, and we estimate these plantations had become a net sink for C before year 20, although total C storage was still less than postharvest levels. Key words: C sequestration, forest floors; coarse woody debris; soil organic matter


PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e6897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yujuan Zhang ◽  
Shiming Tang ◽  
Shu Xie ◽  
Kesi Liu ◽  
Jinsheng Li ◽  
...  

Background Patchy vegetation is a very common phenomenon due to long-term overgrazing in degraded steppe grasslands, which results in substantial uncertainty associated with soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) dynamics because of changes in the amount of litter accumulation and nutrition input into soil. Methods We investigated soil C and N stocks beneath three types of monodominant species patches according to community dominance. Stipa krylovii patches, Artemisia frigida patches, and Potentilla acaulis patches represent better to worse vegetation conditions in a grassland in northern China. Results The results revealed that the soil C stock (0–40 cm) changed significantly, from 84.7 to 95.7 Mg ha−1, and that the soil organic carbon content (0–10 cm) and microbial biomass carbon (0–10 and 10–20 cm) varied remarkably among the different monodominant species communities (P < 0.05). However, soil total nitrogen and microbial biomass nitrogen showed no significant differences among different plant patches in the top 0–20 cm of topsoil. The soil C stocks under the P. acaulis and S. krylovii patches were greater than that under the A. frigida patch. Our study implies that accurate estimates of soil C and N storage in degenerated grassland require integrated analyses of the concurrent effects of differences in plant community composition.


2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (5) ◽  
pp. 443 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. E. Allen ◽  
M. J. Pringle ◽  
D. W. Butler ◽  
B. K. Henry ◽  
T. F. A. Bishop ◽  
...  

Soil and land-management interactions in Australian native-forest regrowth remain a major source of uncertainty in the context of the global carbon economy. We sampled soil total organic C (TOC) and soil total N (TN) stocks at 45 sites within the Brigalow ecological community of the Brigalow Belt bioregion, Queensland, Australia. The sites were matched as triplets representing three land uses, specifically: uncleared native brigalow forest (‘Remnant’); grassland pasture (‘Pasture’), derived by clearing native vegetation and maintained as pasture for a minimum of 10 years, and; regrowing native brigalow forest (‘Regrowth’, stand ages ranging from 10 to 58 years) that had developed spontaneously after past vegetation clearing for pasture establishment. Soil TOC fractions and natural abundance of soil C and N isotopes were examined to obtain insight into C and N dynamics. An updated above- and belowground carbon budget for the bioregions was generated. Average soil TOC stocks at 0–0.3-m depth ranged from 19 to 79 Mg ha–1 and soil TN stocks from 1.8 to 7.1 Mg ha–1 (2.5th and 97.5th percentiles, respectively). A trend in stocks was apparent with land use: Remnant > Regrowth ≅ Pasture sites. Soil δ13C ranged from –14 to –27‰, and soil δ15N ranged from 4‰ to 17‰, in general reflecting the difference between Pasture (C4-dominated) land use and N2-fixing (C3-dominated) Remnant and Regrowth. Mid-infrared spectroscopy predicted C fractions as a percentage of soil TOC stock, which ranged from 5% to 60% (particulate), 20–80% (humus) and 9–30% (resistant/inert). The geo-referenced soil and management information we collected is important for the calibration of C models, for the estimation of national C accounts, and to inform policy developments in relation to land-resource management undertaken within the Brigalow Belt bioregions of Australia.


2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Bauhus ◽  
T Vor ◽  
N Bartsch ◽  
A Cowling

Despite the importance of gaps in the dynamics and management of many forest types, very little is known about the medium- to long-term soil C and N dynamics associated with this disturbance. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that gap creation and lime application, a routine measure in many European forests to ameliorate soil acidity, lead to accelerated litter decomposition and thus a reduction in the forest floor and soil C and N pools. Four gaps were created in 1989 in a mature European beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forest on acid soil with a moder humus, and lime (3 t dolomite·ha–1) was applied to two of these and surrounding areas. Litter and fine-root decomposition was measured in 1992–1993 and 1996–1998 using litterbags. Forest floor (L, F, and H layers) and mineral soil (0–40 cm) C and N pools were determined in 1989 and 1997. Eight years following silvicultural treatments, there was no change in C and N over the entire forest soil profile including forest floor. Reductions in the F and H layers in limed gaps were compensated for by increases in soil C and N in the surface (0–10 cm) mineral soil. Decomposition of F litter was significantly accelerated in limed gaps, leading to the development of a mull–moder, whereas gap creation alone had no effect on mass loss of F material in litterbags. Gap size disturbances in this acid beech forest appear to have minimal influences on soil C and N stocks. However, when combined with liming, changes in the humus form and vertical distribution of soil C and N may occur.


2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (18) ◽  
pp. 4279-4294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth E. Webb ◽  
Kathryn Heard ◽  
Susan M. Natali ◽  
Andrew G. Bunn ◽  
Heather D. Alexander ◽  
...  

Abstract. Permafrost soils store between 1330 and 1580 Pg carbon (C), which is 3 times the amount of C in global vegetation, almost twice the amount of C in the atmosphere, and half of the global soil organic C pool. Despite the massive amount of C in permafrost, estimates of soil C storage in the high-latitude permafrost region are highly uncertain, primarily due to undersampling at all spatial scales; circumpolar soil C estimates lack sufficient continental spatial diversity, regional intensity, and replication at the field-site level. Siberian forests are particularly undersampled, yet the larch forests that dominate this region may store more than twice as much soil C as all other boreal forest types in the continuous permafrost zone combined. Here we present above- and belowground C stocks from 20 sites representing a gradient of stand age and structure in a larch watershed of the Kolyma River, near Chersky, Sakha Republic, Russia. We found that the majority of C stored in the top 1 m of the watershed was stored belowground (92 %), with 19 % in the top 10 cm of soil and 40 % in the top 30 cm. Carbon was more variable in surface soils (10 cm; coefficient of variation (CV)  =  0.35 between stands) than in the top 30 cm (CV  =  0.14) or soil profile to 1 m (CV  =  0.20). Combined active-layer and deep frozen deposits (surface – 15 m) contained 205 kg C m−2 (yedoma, non-ice wedge) and 331 kg C m−2 (alas), which, even when accounting for landscape-level ice content, is an order of magnitude more C than that stored in the top meter of soil and 2 orders of magnitude more C than in aboveground biomass. Aboveground biomass was composed of primarily larch (53 %) but also included understory vegetation (30 %), woody debris (11 %) and snag (6 %) biomass. While aboveground biomass contained relatively little (8 %) of the C stocks in the watershed, aboveground processes were linked to thaw depth and belowground C storage. Thaw depth was negatively related to stand age, and soil C density (top 10 cm) was positively related to soil moisture and negatively related to moss and lichen cover. These results suggest that, as the climate warms, changes in stand age and structure may be as important as direct climate effects on belowground environmental conditions and permafrost C vulnerability.


2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (8) ◽  
pp. 1140-1144 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy E. Prescott ◽  
Anya Reid ◽  
Shu Yao Wu ◽  
Marie-Charlotte Nilsson

Mechanical site preparation is assumed to reduce soil C stocks by increasing the rate at which the displaced organic material decomposes, but the evidence is equivocal. We measured rates of C loss of forest-floor material in mesh bags either placed on the surface or buried in the mineral soil at four sites in different regional climates in British Columbia. During the 3-year incubation, buried forest-floor material lost between 5% and 15% more C mass than material on the surface, with the greatest difference occurring at the site with the lowest annual precipitation. Studies of the long-term fate of buried and surface humus are needed to understand the net effects of site preparation on soil C stocks.


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