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Harvard Forest REU Symposium Abstract 2011

  • Title: Soil carbon dynamics and its controls across Gradients at Harvard Forest
  • Author: Moussa D Bakari (Lincoln University, Jefferson city Missouri)
  • Abstract:

    Environmental conditions and the components of an ecosystem respiration play a significant role in the understanding of climate change. Soil respiration has a potential role in amplifying global warming due to its sensitivity to environmental conditions. Carbon cycles rapidly change between the atmosphere and soil as CO2. Soils, depending on how they are managed, represent an important source or sink of CO2 to the atmosphere. At Harvard Forest we explored the dynamics of soil carbon fluxes across the gradient of plant composition and soil properties. We measured soil flux using the licor 6400 across the gradient in 174 points as well as litter mass, root biomass, soil carbon and nitrogen ration. We also looked at diameter at breast height (DBH) of tree trunks across the gradient of the forest, tree species, soil drainage and slope gradient. Over the period of 9 weeks we accomplished 5 biweekly cycles of measurements for carbon flux in relation to moisture and temperature among the variables considered. The weekly efflux rates varied from 14 to 22 μMol*m‐2s‐1 in response to temperature and time of day. We also established significant links between soil respiration and root mass and soil type and moisture. Each of the 49 plots had a specific combination of tree species diversity and soil drainage type leading to a conclusion that red maple stands had the highest correlation between soil moisture and the carbon flux across five measurement cycles.

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