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Soil variability through spatial scales in a permanently disturbed natural spruce-fir-beech forest

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Abstract

Soil variability was assessed in a 74.2-ha area within the Žofínský prales natural forest. Parameters evaluated for 1765 soil profiles inside 353 graticule plots were as follows: (1) thickness of organic horizons, (2) thickness and form of mineral horizons, (3) humus form (HF), (4) soil taxonomic unit (STU) and (5) anomalies. In addition, soil reaction (pHKCl) and oxidizable carbon content (Cox) were measured in the laboratory for 734 samples from the upper mineral (A) and lower mineral (B) horizons. The most frequently occurring humus form was mor followed by moder, hydromor and peaty T-horizon. Entic Podzols, Dystric Cambisols, Haplic Cambisols, Albic Podzols, Histic (or Haplic) Gleysols, Endogleyic Stagnosols, Fibric or Hemic or Sapric Histosols and Stagnic Gleysols were all present at the site despite its homogeneous geological bedrock. Overall coefficient of variance (CV) was lower in terrestrial soils compared with (semi-)hydromorphic soils. Overall variance decreased in both soil groups with increasing depth, as did CV differences between the fine (up to 10 m) and the locality scales. The lowest CV values occurred for Cox and pHKCl. The CV values differed between STUs as well. Compared to lower horizons, variograms of upper horizons showed greater autocorrelation at the intermediate spatial scale (10–320 m)—ranging from 50 to 150 m. Semivariance values, however, reached 70–80% of sill already at a distance of 10 m. The most significant factor of variability at all studied spatial scales is presumably the soil disturbance regime, followed by terrain micro-topography and the effect of tree species.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank their colleagues from the “Blue Cat research team” for field data measurement—Dušan Adam, Petra Doleželová, Libor Hort, David Janik, Kamil Král, Hana Kučeráková, Pavel Unar. The authors would also like to thank all anonymous reviewers, as their comments and suggestions considerably improved the quality of the paper. The research was supported by the Czech Science Foundation (project No. 526/09/P335), the Czech Ministry of the Environment (project No. MSM 6293359101) and by the Mendel University in Brno (project no. IGA 12/2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Forest Ecology, The Silva Tarouca Research Institute for Landscape and Ornamental Gardening, Lidická 25/27, 657 20, Brno, Czech Republic

    Pavel Šamonil, Martin Valtera, Barbora Šebková & Tomáš Vrška

  2. Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1, 613 00, Brno, Czech Republic

    Martin Valtera, Barbora Šebková & Jakub Houška

  3. Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague, Albertov 6, 128 43, Prague 2, Czech Republic

    Stanislav Bek

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  1. Pavel Šamonil
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Correspondence to Pavel Šamonil.

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Communicated by A. Merino.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Fig. 8.

Fig. 8
figure 8

Presence of individual humus forms in sample plots. Size of circles indicates the number of cases of evaluated humus forms within a plot (0–5 cases)

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Appendix 2

See Fig. 9.

Fig. 9
figure 9

Presence of individual soil taxonomical units (STU) in sample plots. Size of circles indicates the number of cases of evaluated STU within a plot (0–5 cases). a—presence of hydromorphic and semihydromorphic STUs (“wet sites”), upper left picture shows water impact within individual plots (percentage of surface); b—presence of terrestrial STUs (“dry sites”)

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Appendix 3

See Fig. 10.

Fig. 10
figure 10

Average thickness of individual soil horizons in plots (grey scale). White plots indicate the total absence of (semi-)hydromorphic (“wet”) or terrestrial (“dry”) soils within that plot, respectively

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Appendix 4

See Fig. 11.

Fig. 11
figure 11

Oxidizable C content and values of soil reaction in plots (grey scale). White plots indicate the total absence of (semi-)hydromorphic (“wet”) or terrestrial (“dry”) soils within that plot, respectively

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Šamonil, P., Valtera, M., Bek, S. et al. Soil variability through spatial scales in a permanently disturbed natural spruce-fir-beech forest. Eur J Forest Res 130, 1075–1091 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-011-0496-2

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