Soil respiration refers to carbon dioxide (CO2) released by roots and micro-organisms in the soil, to the atmosphere. It is a large, hard-to-measure, component of the global carbon budget. Some important tasks are (1) to understand what aspects of a site – types of trees, soil, weather, etc. – cause it to release more or less CO2 and (2) to rank sites according to
the amount of CO2 released. Ecologists typically use a quantity called Q10 for ranking. This poster will explain Q10 and compare Q10 to two other possibilities, based on linear and spline regressions. All three methods will be illustrated with data collected at sites in Harvard Forest.