Abstract
Mankind expects from forests and forest soils benefits like pure drinking water, space for recreation, habitats for nature-near biocenoses and the production of timber as unrivaled climate-friendly raw material. An overview over 208 recent articles revealed that ecosystem services are actually the main focus in the perception of forest soil functions. Studies on structures and processes that are the basis of forest soil functions and ecosystem services are widely lacking. Therefore, additional literature was included dealing with the distinct soil structure and high porosity and pore continuity of forest soils, as well as with their high biological activity and chemical soil reaction. Thus, the highly differentiated, hierarchical soil structure in combination with the ion exchange capacity and the acid buffering capacity could be described as the main characteristics of forest soils confounding the desired ecosystem services. However, some of these functions of forest soils are endangered under the influence of environmental change or even because of forest management, like mono-cultures or soil compaction through forest machines. In the face of the high vulnerability of forest soils and increased threads, e.g., through soil acidification, it is evident that active soil management strategies must be implemented with the aim to counteract the loss of soil functions or to recover them.
Highlights
What Are Forest Soils Expected to Be and to Deliver?The specific characteristic of forest soils is their long-term development under a moreor-less continuous vegetation cover
This study revealed that strategies for preserving soil functions in a sustainable way need multivariate modeling approaches on a sound basis of quality-checked data, as well as thorough transfer and communication of the results to practitioners and the public
Some concluding remarks will summarize what forest soils differentiate from soils under other land use types
Summary
The specific characteristic of forest soils is their long-term development under a moreor-less continuous vegetation cover. Trees as long-living organisms and through their magnitude shape soils in a specific way. Forest soils are the habitat of a high diversity of plants, macro-fauna and microbes [2]. The high demand of trees and soil biota for essential nutrients like phosphorous and nitrogen leads to low leaching rates of those elements in most forest soils [5]. Both the low load with pesticides and low leaching of phosphorous and nitrogen make forests sources of predominantly pure drinking water [6]. Luo et al [7]
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