Frass deposition from pest outbreaks affects soil organic carbon and its relationship with environmental factors in a deciduous broad-leaved forest

Abstract

Forest defoliators are one of the major biological disturbances to forest ecosystems. As one of the abnormal nutrient input paths into forest ecosystems, frass deposition from the pest outbreak plays a critical role in regulating soil organic carbon (SOC) in forest ecosystems. However, how frass deposition affects SOC and its fractions in forests remains unclear. Based on a severe outbreak of defoliator in an oak-sweetgum mixed forest in Jigong Mountain in 2014, we compared the difference in SOC between plots with and without frass deposition for 4 consecutive years. The results showed that frass deposition led to a significant increase of 25.1 % in soil microbial biomass C (MBC) and 32.0 % in dissolved organic C (DOC) in 2014, which further escalated to 50.4 % and 50.6 % in the subsequent year (2015), respectively. The response of SOC to frass deposition lagged behind MBC and DOC. Specifically, there was no change in SOC in 2014, but a significant increase (50.9 %) was observed in the subsequent 2–3 years. The positive dependences of MBC and DOC upon fine root biomass were negated under frass deposition, while the relationship between SOC and fine root biomass remained unaffected. Soil organic carbon and DOC showed non-linear responses to frass amount and the changed soil nitrogen content. Our finding that the response of SOC to frass deposition lagged behind soil labile C indicates that SOC exhibits a certain resilience towards forest disturbance. The findings also imply that investigating the long-term impacts of frass deposition on SOC in forests would contribute to the scientific assessment of forest C cycling under disturbance.