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Spatial pattern of soil nitrogen availability and its relationship to stand structure in a coniferous-broadleaved mixed forest with a dense dwarf bamboo understory in northern Japan

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Ecological Research

Abstract

Natural disturbances create spatial patterns of the ecosystem processes and functions in natural forests. However, how dynamics and the spatial structure of forests relate to soil nitrogen dynamics is not well understood. We examined the spatial relationship between the distributions of canopy and understory species, and soil nitrogen dynamics in a natural coniferous-broadleaved mixed forest with a dense understory of Sasa dwarf bamboo in northern Japan. The O horizon was thick where coniferous litter predominated, and it was thin where broadleaved litter predominated. The soil water content was low in areas with a thick O horizon and a high abundance of coniferous trees. The soil nitrate content was low where the soil water content was low, and the soil nitrate content increased linearly with increasing net nitrification potential. These results suggest that the soil nitrate content under the coniferous canopy was lower because of the low nitrification potential of soil microbes in soils with low water contents. The soil nitrate content and nitrification potential were higher in the canopy gap than under the canopy. Our results suggest that forest structure, specifically the thickness of the forest floor, significantly affects the spatial pattern of the soil water content, thereby creating a spatial pattern of soil nitrogen availability at a relatively small scale with flat topography. The higher nitrification potential under the canopy gap could pose a long-term risk of nitrate leaching because of the suppression of the natural regeneration of canopy species by dense Sasa dwarf bamboo in this forest ecosystem.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the technical staff and graduate students of the Northern Forestry Research and Development Office and the Uryu Experimental Forest of Field Science Center for the Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, for field and laboratory assistance during the course of this study. We also thank Dr. Junichi Kashiwagi for his help with the spatial analysis of our data, and Dr. Makoto Kobayashi for insightful comments on the manuscript. This work was partly supported by the Program for Risk Information on Climate Change, which was supported by the Japan Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S-15) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

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  1. Tsunehiro Watanabe

    Present address: Field Science Education and Research Center, Kyoto University, 553 Tawa, Shibecha-cho, Kawakami-gun, Hokkaido, 088-2339, Japan

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Environmental Science, Hokkaido University, N9 W9, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-0809, Japan

    Takahiro Inoue

  2. Nakagawa Experimental Forest, Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, 483 Otoineppu, Otoineppu, Hokkaido, 098-2501, Japan

    Karibu Fukuzawa

  3. Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, N9 W9, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido, 060-0809, Japan

    Tsunehiro Watanabe & Hideaki Shibata

  4. Uryu Experimental Forest, Field Science Center for Northern Biosphere, Hokkaido University, Moshiri, Horokanai, Hokkaido, 074-0741, Japan

    Toshiya Yoshida

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  1. Takahiro Inoue
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Correspondence to Takahiro Inoue.

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Inoue, T., Fukuzawa, K., Watanabe, T. et al. Spatial pattern of soil nitrogen availability and its relationship to stand structure in a coniferous-broadleaved mixed forest with a dense dwarf bamboo understory in northern Japan. Ecol Res 32, 227–241 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-017-1434-7

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