Abstract
Development and change in forest communities are strongly influenced by plant-soil interactions. The primary objective of this paper was to identify how forest soil characteristics vary along gradients of forest community composition in aspen-conifer forests to better understand the relationship between forest vegetation characteristics and soil processes. The study was conducted on the Fishlake National Forest, Utah, USA. Soil measurements were collected in adjacent forest stands that were characterized as aspen dominated, mixed, conifer dominated or open meadow, which includes the range of vegetation conditions that exist in seral aspen forests. Soil chemistry, moisture content, respiration, and temperature were measured. There was a consistent trend in which aspen stands demonstrated higher mean soil nutrient concentrations than mixed and conifer dominated stands and meadows. Specifically, total N, NO3 and NH4 were nearly two-fold higher in soil underneath aspen dominated stands. Soil moisture was significantly higher in aspen stands and meadows in early summer but converged to similar levels as those found in mixed and conifer dominated stands in late summer. Soil respiration was significantly higher in aspen stands than conifer stands or meadows throughout the summer. These results suggest that changes in disturbance regimes or climate scenarios that favor conifer expansion or loss of aspen will decrease soil resource availability, which is likely to have important feedbacks on plant community development.
Highlights
Forest community types are often associated with specific soil classes, and soil chemistry and texture have important influences on forest function [1,2]
Plant-soil interactions play a critical role in structuring soil and plant community characteristics that underlie ecosystem function [33]
Plant-soil interactions can be reset through large scale disturbances, such as fire, that can result in shifts in soil microbial communities and changes in soil resource availability [34,35]
Summary
Forest community types are often associated with specific soil classes, and soil chemistry and texture have important influences on forest function [1,2]. Aspen stands tend to have higher biodiversity and productivity than both the forest meadow into which they expand, and conifer dominated stands that in the absence of disturbance replace them [12]. These shifts in plant community characteristics can alter soil characteristics and initiate a sequence of plant-soil interactions and feedbacks [13,14,15,16]. While differences in various soil characteristics have been compared under aspen versus conifer dominated stands in boreal forests [18,19,20], few studies have examined how soil traits vary across gradients of forest community composition (meadowRaspen dominantRmixedR conifer dominant)
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