Articles containing the keyword 'litter decomposition'

The article is a literature review focusing on the reaction of soil respiration, litter decomposition and microflora of forest soils to various pollutants like acidic deposition, heavy metals and unusual high amounts of basic cations. There is a great deal of evidence indicating that environmental pollution affects soil microbial activity and community structure. Much of the data originates from experimental designs where high levels of pollutants were applied to the soil under field or laboratory conditions. Furthermore, many were short-term experiments designed to look for large effects. These experiments have an indicative value, but it has to be kept in mind that environmental pollution is a combination of many pollutants, mostly at low concentrations, acting over long periods of time. There is therefore consequently a demand for research performed in natural forest environments polluted with anthropogenic compounds. 

• Fritze, E-mail: hf@mm.unknown

Carbon sequestration rates in forest soil can be estimated using the concept of calculable stable remains in decomposing litter. In a case study of Swedish forest land we estimated C-sequestration rates for the two dominant tree species in the forest floor on top of the mineral soil. Carbon sequestration rates were upscaled to the forested land of Sweden with 23 x 10⁶ ha with Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) and Norway spruce (Picea abies (Karst.) L.). Two different theoretical approaches, based on limit-value for litter decomposition and N-balance for vegetation and SOM gave rates of the same magnitude. For the upscaling, using these methods, 17 000 grids of 5 x 5 km were used.

The ‘limit-value approach’ gave a sequestration of 4.8   10⁶ tons of C, annually sequestered in the forest floor, with an average of 180 kg C ha^–1 yr^–1 and a range from 40 to 410 kg C ha^–1 yr^–1. The ‘N-balance approach’ gave an average value of c. 96 kg ha^–1 yr^–1 and a range from –60 to 360 kg ha^–1 yr^–1. A method based on direct measurements of changes in humus depth over 40 years, combined with C analyses gave an average rate that was not very different from the calculated rates, viz. c. 180 kg ha^–1 yr^–1 and a range from –20 to 730 kg ha^–1 yr^–1. These values agree with forest floor C sequestration rate based on e.g. sampling of chronsequences but differ from CO₂ balance measurements.

The three approaches showed different patterns over the country and regions with high and low carbon sequestration rates that were not always directly related to climate.

• Berg, Dept. of Forest Ecology, University of Helsinki, Finland (present address: Dipartimento Biologia Strutturale e Funzionale, Complesso Universitario, Monte S. Angelo, Napoli, Italy E-mail: bjorn.berg@helsinki.fi
• Gundersen, Forest & Landscape Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Denmark E-mail: pg@nn.dk
• Akselsson, Swedish Environmental Research Institute, IVL, Gothenburg, Sweden E-mail: ca@nn.se
• Johansson, Department of Forest Soils, SLU, Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: mbj@nn.se
• Nilsson, Department of Forest Soils, SLU, Uppsala, Sweden E-mail: an@nn.se
• Vesterdal, Forest & Landscape Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Denmark E-mail: lv@nn.dk

• Chen, Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of Ministry of Education, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China E-mail: chenxiao_0123@126.com
• Page-Dumroese, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 1221 South Main Street, Moscow, ID 83843, USA E-mail: ddumroese@fs.fed.us
• Lv, College of Plant Science and Technology, Tarim University, Alar Xinjiang, 843300, China E-mail: lvrh514723@126.com
• Wang, Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of Ministry of Education, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China E-mail: fuyuerdejia@126.com
• Li, Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of Ministry of Education, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China E-mail: glli226@163.com
• Liu, Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation of Ministry of Education, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China E-mail: lyong@bjfu.edu.cn