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Succession-driven changes in soil respiration following fire in black spruce stands of interior Alaska

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Abstract

Boreal forests are highly susceptible to wildfire, and post-fire changes in soil temperature and moisture have the potential to transform large areas of the landscape from a net sink to a net source of carbon (C). Understanding the ecological controls that regulate these disturbance effects is critical to developing models of ecosystem response to changes in fire frequency and severity. This paper combines laboratory and field measurements along a chronosequence of burned black spruce stands into regression analyses and models that assess relationships between moss succession, soil microclimate, decomposition, and C source-sink dynamics. Results indicate that post-fire changes in temperature and substrate quality increased decomposition in humic materials by a factor of 3.0 to 4.0 in the first 7 years after fire. Bryophyte species exhibited a distinct successional pattern in the first five decades after fire that corresponded to decreased soil temperature and increased C accumulation in organic soils. Potential rates of C exchange in mosses were greatest in early successional species and declined as the stand matured. Residual sources of CO2 (those not attributed to moss respiration or humic decomposition) increased as a function of stand age, reflecting increased contributions from roots as the stand recovered from disturbance. Together, the field measurements, laboratory experiments, and models provide strong evidence that interactions between moss and plant succession, soil temperature, and soil moisture largely regulate C source-sink dynamics from black spruce systems in the first century following fire disturbance.

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Abbreviations

ΔR :

non-microclimate driven changes in respiration

B:

burned material

BD:

bulk density

C:

carbon

CO :

control material

FD:

fibric decomposition

F(T):

flux associated with a given incubation temperature

FT:

field CO2 flux

HD:

humic decomposition

MR:

moss respiration

RF:

temperature functions for respiration

RR:

residual sources of respiration

T :

temperature

T h :

thickness of soil layer

WHC:

water holding capacity

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. USDA Agricultural Research Service, Appalachian Farming Systems Research Center, 1224 Airport Rd, Beaver, WV, 25813, USA

    Katherine P. O’Neill

  2. Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC, 27708-0328, USA

    Katherine P. O’Neill & Daniel D. Richter

  3. Department of Geography, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742-8225, USA

    Eric S. Kasischke

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  1. Katherine P. O’Neill
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  2. Daniel D. Richter
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  3. Eric S. Kasischke
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Correspondence to Katherine P. O’Neill.

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O’Neill, K.P., Richter, D.D. & Kasischke, E.S. Succession-driven changes in soil respiration following fire in black spruce stands of interior Alaska. Biogeochemistry 80, 1–20 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-005-5964-7

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