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Dynamics of fine roots in five Chinese temperate forests

  • JPR Symposium
  • Carbon cycle process in East Asia
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Abstract

We used a minirhizotron method to investigate spatial and temporal dynamics of fine roots (diameter ≤2 mm) in five Chinese temperate forests: Mongolian oak forest, aspen-birch forest, hardwood forest, Korean pine plantation and Dahurian larch plantation. Fine root dynamics were significantly influenced by forest type, soil layer, and sampling time. The grand mean values varied from 1.99 to 3.21 mm cm−2 (root length per minirhizotron viewing area) for the fine root standing crop; from 6.7 to 11.6 μm cm−2 day−1 for the production; and from 3.2 to 6.1 μm cm−2 day−1 for the mortality. All forests had a similar seasonal “sinusoidal” pattern of standing crop, and a “unimodal” pattern of production. However, the seasonal dynamics of the mortality were largely unsynchronized with those of the production. The minimum values of standing crop, production and mortality occurred in March for all forests, whereas the maximum values and occurrence time differed among forest types. The standing crop, production and mortality tended to decrease with soil depth. The different spatiotemporal patterns of fine roots among the forests highlight the need for forest-specific measurements and modeling of fine root dynamics and forest carbon allocation.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 30625010), the Special Foundation for Common Benefits in Forestry (No. 200804001), and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2006BAD03A0703). We thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Forestry, Northeast Forestry University, 26 Hexing Road, Harbin, 150040, China

    Xiankuai Quan, Chuankuan Wang, Quanzhi Zhang & Xingchang Wang

  2. Department of Botany and Microbiology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, 73019, USA

    Yiqi Luo

  3. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Joint Global Change Research Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, 5825 University Research Court, Suite 3500, College Park, MD, 20740, USA

    Ben Bond-Lamberty

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  1. Xiankuai Quan
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  2. Chuankuan Wang
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Correspondence to Chuankuan Wang.

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Quan, X., Wang, C., Zhang, Q. et al. Dynamics of fine roots in five Chinese temperate forests. J Plant Res 123, 497–507 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-010-0322-9

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