TY - JOUR

T1 - Response of deep soil carbon pools to forest management in a highly productive andisol

AU - Dietzen, Christiana A.

AU - Marques, Eduardo R.G.

AU - James, Jason N.

AU - Bernardi, Rodolpho H.A.

AU - Holub, Scott M.

AU - Harrison, Robert B.

N1 - Funding Information: The authors acknowledge Luis Souza and Andrew Cox for field and lab assistance, Dongsen Xue for lab supervision and support, and Darlene Zabowski for helpful discussion and review of the manuscript. Financial support for the installation of the experimental treatments was provided by the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement, and Weyerhauser NR Company, which also provided the study site and ongoing support for experimental treatments. Thanks to the National Science Foundation Center for Advanced Forest Systems, the Northwest Advanced Renewables Alliance, the University of Washington, the Stand Management Cooperative, the McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Research program, and the Stanley Gessel & William Kreuter Scholarship for funding this project. Publisher Copyright: © Soil Science Society of America, 5585 Guilford Rd., Madison WI 53711 USA. All Rights reserved

PY - 2017/7/1

Y1 - 2017/7/1

N2 - Soil contains more C than the atmosphere and plant biomass combined. Consequently, it is the most important long-term sink for C within terrestrial ecosystems. An understanding of the potential to induce C sequestration in soils through management is crucial in light of increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, soil has historically been under-represented in C cycling research, especially regarding subsurface (>30 cm) layers and processes. Research on the effects of forest management practices on deep soil C has been lacking. To test the effects of biomass removal and vegetation control treatments on deep soil C, soils were sampled to a depth of 3 m at the Fall River Long-term Soil Productivity Site in western Washington State. Treatments were installed 15 yr previously in a complete randomized block design. No difference was found in total soil C among treatments, but there was significantly less (a = 0.10) C stored at the deepest interval measured (250–300 cm) in the plots with vegetation control (8.6 Mg C ha-1) than in those without (16.3 Mg C ha-1). These results suggest the stability of soil C pools at Fall River and indicate that more intensive management practices may not deplete C pools at this site, but imply that these deep soil pools may be more sensitive to change than shallow pools. Here, 58.2% of the soil C pool is located below 30 cm, which demonstrates that shallow sampling significantly underestimates soil C pools and highlights the importance of understanding processes that control deep soil C.

AB - Soil contains more C than the atmosphere and plant biomass combined. Consequently, it is the most important long-term sink for C within terrestrial ecosystems. An understanding of the potential to induce C sequestration in soils through management is crucial in light of increasing anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Nevertheless, soil has historically been under-represented in C cycling research, especially regarding subsurface (>30 cm) layers and processes. Research on the effects of forest management practices on deep soil C has been lacking. To test the effects of biomass removal and vegetation control treatments on deep soil C, soils were sampled to a depth of 3 m at the Fall River Long-term Soil Productivity Site in western Washington State. Treatments were installed 15 yr previously in a complete randomized block design. No difference was found in total soil C among treatments, but there was significantly less (a = 0.10) C stored at the deepest interval measured (250–300 cm) in the plots with vegetation control (8.6 Mg C ha-1) than in those without (16.3 Mg C ha-1). These results suggest the stability of soil C pools at Fall River and indicate that more intensive management practices may not deplete C pools at this site, but imply that these deep soil pools may be more sensitive to change than shallow pools. Here, 58.2% of the soil C pool is located below 30 cm, which demonstrates that shallow sampling significantly underestimates soil C pools and highlights the importance of understanding processes that control deep soil C.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85028730500&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.2136/sssaj2016.09.0305

DO - 10.2136/sssaj2016.09.0305

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85028730500

VL - 81

SP - 970

EP - 978

JO - Soil Science Society of America Journal

JF - Soil Science Society of America Journal

SN - 0361-5995

IS - 4

ER -