Fire Effects on Plant-Soil System in Taiga Forests in Interior Alaska
Nutrient availability is assumed to increase and stimulate ecosystem productivity by global warming in many terrestrial ecosystems. Northern forests contain significant global carbon pools, and fire is a common component in these forests. Thus, concerns have recently been directed to fire effects on...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Text |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.511.9593 http://www.iarc.uaf.edu/workshops/terrestrial_team/indiv_pdf/fire_effects_plant_soil_system.pdf |
| Summary: | Nutrient availability is assumed to increase and stimulate ecosystem productivity by global warming in many terrestrial ecosystems. Northern forests contain significant global carbon pools, and fire is a common component in these forests. Thus, concerns have recently been directed to fire effects on carbon and nitrogen cycles in plant-soil system. Our objective of this study is to clarify fire effects on 1) surface soil properties, especially soil N transformations, 2) dissolved organic matter characteristics in soil, 3) plant N use and 4) openness of N cycle. In Aug. 2005, a preliminary research was carried out in the Poker Flat Research Range located in the heavily burned area by a large forest fire in 2004. Pool size of inorganic N, metals, and dissolved organic carbon, and net rates of N mineralization and nitrification were compared (1) between burned and unburned areas in three different vegetation stands (black spruce, black spruce/paper birch, and aspen) and (2) between inside and outside of unburned “moss island”. Soil inorganic N pool size was larger in the burned stands than in the unburned stands, while rate of net N mineralization (measured using laboratory incubation) was greater in the unburned stands than in the burned stands. Between |
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