Abstract
Aim of study : To determine if plantations consisting of different geographic origins of the Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton.) could have altered C and N stocks in the forest floor and surface soils.Area of study : Forest floor and mineral soil C and N stocks were measured in four adjacent plantations of different geographic origins of Maritime pine (Gironde, Toulon, Corsica and Spain) and adjacent primary native Sessile oak (Quercus petraea L.) at Burunsuz region in Belgrad Forest where is located in the Istanbul province in the Marmara geographical region between 41°09' -41°12' N latitude and 28°54' - 29°00' E longitude in Turkey.Material and Methods : Plots were compared as common garden experiments without replications. 15 surface soil (0-10 cm) and 15 forest floor samples were taken from each Maritime pine origins and adjacent native Sessile oak forest. C and N contents were determined on LECO Truspec 2000 CN analyzer. The statistical significance of the results was evaluated by one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).Research highlights : Forest floor carbon mass, nitrogen concentration and nitrogen mass of forest floor showed a significant difference among origins. Soil carbon mass and nitrogen mass did not significantly differ among investigated plots.Keywords: carbon sequestration; C/N ratio; decomposition; exotic; tree provenance.
Highlights
Forest ecosystems play an important role in carbon (C) cycle, acting as a carbon sink (Penne et al, 2010)
The C accumulation of the pine species has been studied by some researchers (Bravo et al, 2008; Sever and Makineci, 2009; Tolunay, 2009; Fernández-Núñez et al, 2010), there has been a gap for understanding of soil C accumulation and decomposition which is currently not sufficient for predicting changes in the amount of carbon sequestered in forest soils in the literature (Gorte, 2009)
The primary objective of this study was to determine if plantations consisting of different geographic origins of the Maritime pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton.) with likely varied phenologies, resource requirements, growth rates, and chemical characteristics in litter fall could have altered C and N stocks in the forest floor and surface soils
Summary
Forest ecosystems play an important role in carbon (C) cycle, acting as a carbon sink (Penne et al, 2010). 40% of the global soil C stocks reside in the forest ecosystems (Matos et al, 2010). The C pool in the forest ecosystem is nowadays an objective to be taken into account in forest management, because C is accumulated in the forests through an increment in biomass, dead organic matter and soil C, and is released through respiration and decomposition (Del Río et al, 2008). The C stored in terrestrial ecosystems is distributed in three compartments: biomass of living plants (stem, branches, foliage and roots), plant detritus (branches and cones, forest litter, tree stumps, toppings and logs) and soil (organic mineral humus, surface and deep mineral soil). The C accumulation of the pine species has been studied by some researchers (Bravo et al, 2008; Sever and Makineci, 2009; Tolunay, 2009; Fernández-Núñez et al, 2010), there has been a gap for understanding of soil C accumulation and decomposition which is currently not sufficient for predicting changes in the amount of carbon sequestered in forest soils in the literature (Gorte, 2009)
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