Quality of organic and upper mineral horizons of mature mountain beech stands with respect to herb layer species

Abstract

The study analyses the chemical properties of the soil in open-canopy beech stands in relation to the predominant species of ground vegetation. A hypothesis is examined whether the predominant ground vegetation species can represent in chemical terms different site conditions. Four localities were used for testing reed grass, myrtle blueberry, wavy hair grass and vegetation-free patches. Samples were taken from three organic horizons (litter (OL), fragmented (OF) and humus (OH)) and from the humic first mineral horizon. Significant differences between the variants were found only in the OL horizon, in which the vegetation species explained 65% of the variability in data. The OL horizon in the vegetation-free variant showed the significantly lowest pH/KCl and the lowest potassium content. The most distinct particular differences were observed between the blueberry variant and the grass variants. Although the studied variants of vegetation growing under the beech stand represented significant differences in the litter horizon chemistry, the effects on the other humus horizons and on the upper mineral horizon were marginal.