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Multiscale heterogeneity of topsoil properties in southern European old-growth forests

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Abstract

Assessing the contribution of forest soils to carbon (C) and nutrient dynamics is extremely complex due to the high spatial variability of soil properties, at fine to very broad scales. Improving our understanding of soil variability is necessary to scale up sample-based inventory data for the estimation of regional contribution of forest soils to C dynamics. We analyzed the topsoil spatial variability of organic carbon (OC) and matter (OM), nitrogen (N), C/N ratio, texture, and pH in 11 southern European old-growth beech stands. Our aim was to assess the within- and among-stand topsoil variability, and to determine the drivers underlying this variation. For each stand, we sampled the topsoil in 25 quadrats in a 1-ha regular grid where we recorded overstorey structural and compositional attributes, deadwood quantity and quality, microtopography and site conditions. Soil parameters varied highly at both scales: When considering all the topsoil properties together through multivariate analysis, most of the variability occurred at the within-stand scale (mostly due to shifts in organic matter content, C/N, and litter depth); the opposite was true when considering soil properties singularly, with pH, soil texture, and N concentration varying greatly among stands. Most of the among-stand variability depended on climate and on the direct and indirect effects of parent material. Fine-scale variation, instead, depended mainly on overstorey composition and microtopographical variation. Surprisingly, we found no direct influence of overstorey structure on topsoil parameters, likely because soil parameters respond to changes in stand structural features only after a substantial time lag.

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Acknowledgments

The original project was funded by two grants (F.M. Sabatini) from Sapienza, University of Rome (Grant No. C26N12ESSE, C26N14JZMA). We would like to thank Borja Jiménez-Alfaro, Emanuela Carli, Carmen Giancola, Eleonora Giarrizzo, Giorgia Martina, Manuel Palma, Danijela Stešević, and Antonio Zoccola for help during the fieldwork. We are grateful to Carlo Blasi, Renzo Motta and Matteo Garbarino for financial and logistic support. Further logistic assistance was provided by State Forestry Corps, ‘Abruzzo, Lazio and Molise National Park,’ ‘Gran Sasso and Monti della Laga National Park,’ ‘ASBUC Intermesoli,’ ‘Giardino della Flora Appenninica di Capracotta,’ and ‘Jardín Botánico Atlántico’ (Gijón, Spain).

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    Authors and Affiliations

    1. Department of Environmental Biology, Sapienza University of Rome, P.le Aldo Moro 5, 00185, Rome, Italy

      Francesco Maria Sabatini, Monica Zanini, Giuseppina Dowgiallo & Sabina Burrascano

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    1. Francesco Maria Sabatini
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    2. Monica Zanini
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    3. Giuseppina Dowgiallo
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    4. Sabina Burrascano
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    Correspondence to Francesco Maria Sabatini.

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    Communicated by Agustín Merino.

    Francesco Maria Sabatini and Monica Zanini have contributed equally to this work.

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    Sabatini, F.M., Zanini, M., Dowgiallo, G. et al. Multiscale heterogeneity of topsoil properties in southern European old-growth forests. Eur J Forest Res 134, 911–925 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10342-015-0899-6

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