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Reduced Winter Snowpack and Greater Soil Frost Reduce Live Root Biomass and Stimulate Radial Growth and Stem Respiration of Red Maple (Acer rubrum) Trees in a Mixed-Hardwood Forest

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Abstract

Northeastern U.S. forests are currently net carbon (C) sinks, but rates of C loss from these ecosystems may be altered by the projected reduction in snowpack and increased soil freezing over the next century. Soil freezing damages fine roots, which may reduce radial tree growth and stem respiration. We conducted a snow removal experiment at Harvard Forest, MA to quantify effects of a reduced winter snowpack and increased soil freezing on root biomass, stem radial growth and respiration in a mixed-hardwood forest. The proportion of live fine root biomass during spring (late-April) declined with increasing soil frost severity (P = 0.05). Basal area increment index was positively correlated with soil frost severity for Acer rubrum, but not Quercus rubra. Rates of stem respiration in the growing season correlated positively with soil frost duration in the previous winter, (\( R^{2}_{{{\text{LMM}}({\text{m}})}} \) = 0.15 and 0.24 for Q. rubra and A. rubrum, respectively). Losses of C from stem respiration were comparable to or greater than C storage from radial growth of Q. rubra and A. rubrum, respectively. Overall, our findings suggest that in mixed-hardwood forests (1) soil freezing has adverse effects on spring live root biomass, but at least in the short-term could stimulate aboveground processes such as stem respiration and radial growth for A. rubrum more than Q. rubra, (2) stem respiration is an important ecosystem C flux and (3) the increasing abundance of A. rubrum relative to Q. rubra may have important implications for C storage in tree stem biomass.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the assistance of Audrey Barker-Plotkin, Christine Bollig, Keala Cummings, Dash Donnelly, Omar Gutiérrez del Arroyo Santiago, Adam Jacobs, Stephanie Juice, Eli Melaas, Trustees of Reservation, and the staff at Harvard Forest. We are appreciative of the thoughtful feedback on this manuscript provided by Ivan Fernandez, Adrien Finzi, Peter Groffman, Lucy Hutyra, Nathan Phillips, and Jim Tang. This project was supported by a US EPA Science to Achieve Results Graduate Fellowship to A. Reinmann and by the Northeastern States Research Cooperative through funding made available by the USDA Forest Service. The conclusions and opinions in this paper are those of the authors and not of the NSRC, the Forest Service, EPA, or the USDA.

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  1. Department of Biology, Boston University, 5 Cummington Mall, Boston, Massachusetts, 02215, USA

    Andrew B. Reinmann & Pamela H. Templer

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  1. Andrew B. Reinmann
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  2. Pamela H. Templer
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Correspondence to Andrew B. Reinmann.

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ABR conceived of the measurements, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. PHT conceived of the experimental design and contributed to the writing of the paper.

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Reinmann, A.B., Templer, P.H. Reduced Winter Snowpack and Greater Soil Frost Reduce Live Root Biomass and Stimulate Radial Growth and Stem Respiration of Red Maple (Acer rubrum) Trees in a Mixed-Hardwood Forest. Ecosystems 19, 129–141 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-015-9923-4

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