Journal
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
Volume 258, Issue 11, Pages 2578-2592Publisher
ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV
DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2009.09.014
Keywords
Fagus sylvatica; Leaching; Mixed species effects; Nutrient cycling; Picea abies
Categories
Funding
- Austrian Science Fund [P18208]
- Austrian Science Fund (FWF) [P18208] Funding Source: Austrian Science Fund (FWF)
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Studies on the combined effects of beech-spruce mixtures are very rare. Hence, forest nutrition (soil, foliage) and nutrient fluxes via throughfall and soil solution were measured in adjacent stands of pure spruce, mixed spruce-beech and pure beech on three nutrient rich sites (Flysch) and three nutrient poor sites (Molasse) over a 2-year period. At low deposition rates (highest throughfall fluxes: 17 kg N ha(-1) year(-1) and 5 kg S ha(-1) year) there was hardly any linkage between nutrient inputs and outputs. Element outputs were rather driven by internal N (mineralization, nitrification) and S (net mineralization of organic S compounds, desorption of historically deposited S) sources. Nitrate and sulfate seepage losses of spruce-beech mixtures were higher than expected from the corresponding single-species stands due to an unfavorable combination of spruce-similar soil solution concentrations coupled with beech-similar water fluxes on Flysch, while most processes on Molasse showed linear responses. Our data show that nutrient leaching through the soil is not simply a wash through but is mediated by a complex set of reactions within the plant-soil system. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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