TITLE:
Disturbance Legacy on Soil Carbon Stocks and Stability within a Coastal Temperate Forest of Southwestern British Columbia, Canada
AUTHORS:
Camille E. Defrenne, Julie E. Wilson, Suzanne W. Simard, Les M. Lavkulich
KEYWORDS:
Soil Carbon, Coastal Forest, Disturbances History, Carbon Storage, Carbon Stocks
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Forestry,
Vol.6 No.5,
August
2,
2016
ABSTRACT: Although
it has been recognized that soils play a critical role in carbon storage and
that coastal temperate forests have considerable potential to sequester soil organic
carbon (SOC), studies related to SOC stocks and stability are scarce in these
ecosystems. Forest disturbances may leave legacies on SOC properties and may
further compromise SOC storage capacity of these ecosystems. In the Pacific
Spirit Regional Park of southwestern British Columbia, we compared SOC stocks
and stability among three second-growth forests that have been affected by
disturbances of different magnitudes. We collected data on soil chemical and
physical properties to estimate SOC content and assess SOC stability. We found
that SOC stocks in the forest characterized by low magnitude disturbance were
greater than those of the forest characterized by high magnitude disturbance
(8.2 ± 1.3 kg·Cm-2 versus 5.3 ± 0.1 kg·Cm-2 to 30 cm
depth). SOC was less stable in the highly disturbed forest and subsequent
vegetation changes might have further reduced SOC stability. Our results
provide insight into the role of disturbance history in the current SOC storage
capacity of coastal temperate rainforests of British Columbia.