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Harvard Forest Symposium Abstract 2010

  • Title: Spatial distribution of total C, total N, pH, rock content, bulk density, soil depth and their relationship to aboveground vegetation C stocks and species composition Harvard Forest (USA) and Ituri Forest (Democratic Republic of Congo)
  • Primary Author: Nsalambi Nkongolo (havard forest)
  • Additional Authors: Eric Davidson (University of Maryland - Center for Environmental Science); Kathleen Savage (Woods Hole Research Center)
  • Abstract:

    Knowledge of the spatial distribution of soil properties is important because these properties influence plant growth and yield patterns across ecosystems. In temperate forest ecosystem, abundant work has been devoted to the study of the interactions between soil properties and species distribution (van Breemen et al., 1997). In tropical forest ecosystem however, although variability in soil borne resource has been suggested to influence species growth and distribution patterns, there is still insufficient information on inter-relationships among forest attributes (e.g., dynamics, diversity, structure), and the physical properties of the environments in which these forests grow (Harms et al., 2001). Among the physical properties of these environments, soil fertility or nutrient availability, parent material, topography and moisture availability have often been named. The spatial variability of soil properties is studied using a range of geospatial technologies which require fields testing to develop and refine appropriate sampling strategies. At Harvard Forest, we are investigating the spatial distribution of total C, total N, pH, rock content, bulk density, soil depth and their relationship to aboveground vegetation C stocks and species composition using Geostatistics, GIS, GPS, Computer Cartography, this in hope to develop approaches which will be applied to our sampling and measurements in Ituri Forest.

  • Research Category: International Research Projects
    Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics

  • Figures:
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