Title
Temporal Variability of Soil Respiration in Experimental Tree Plantations in Lowland Costa Rica
Campus Units
Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Publication Date
2017
Journal or Book Title
Forests
Volume
8
Issue
2
First Page
40
DOI
10.3390/f8020040
Abstract
The principal objective of this study was to determine if there is consistent temporal variability in soil respiration from different forest plantations in a lowland tropical rainforest environment. Soil respiration was measured regularly over 2004 to 2010 in replicated plantations of 15- to 20-year-old evergreen tropical trees in lowland Costa Rica. Statistically significant but small differences in soil respiration were observed among hours of the day; daytime measurements were suitable for determining mean fluxes in this study. Fluxes varied more substantially among months, with the highest average emissions (5.9 μmol·m−2·s−1) occurring in September and low emissions (3.7 μmol·m−2·s−1) occurring in January. Three of the six tree species had significantly increasing rates of soil respiration across 2004–2010, with fluxes increasing at an average of 0.09 μmol·m−2·s−1 per year: the three other species had no long-term trends. It was hypothesized that there would be a tradeoff between carbon allocation aboveground, to produce new leaves, and belowground, to sustain roots and mycorrhizae, but the relationship between canopy leaf fall—a surrogate for canopy leaf flushing—and soil respiration was significantly positive. The similarities observed among temporal trends across plantation types, and significant relationships between soil respiration, soil water content and soil temperature, suggest that the physical environment largely controlled the temporal variability of soil respiration, but differences in flux magnitude among tree species were substantial and consistent across years.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Copyright Owner
The Authors
Copyright Date
2017
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Raich, James W., "Temporal Variability of Soil Respiration in Experimental Tree Plantations in Lowland Costa Rica" (2017). Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology Publications. 217.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/eeob_ag_pubs/217
Included in
Climate Commons, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Commons, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment Commons, Environmental Monitoring Commons
Comments
This article is published as Raich, James W. "Temporal Variability of Soil Respiration in Experimental Tree Plantations in Lowland Costa Rica." Forests 8, no. 2 (2017): 40. 10.3390/f8020040 . Posted with permission.