Drivers of nitrogen leaching from organic layers in Central European beech forests

Schwarz, Martin; Bischoff, Sebastian; Blaser, Stefan; Boch, Steffen; Grassein, Fabrice; Klarner, Bernhard; Schmitt, Barbara; Solly, Emily F.; Ammer, Christian; Michalzik, Beate; Schall, Peter; Scheu, Stefan; Schöning, Ingo; Schrumpf, Marion; Schulze, Ernst Detlef; Siemens, Jan; Wilcke, Wolfgang

doi:10.1007/s11104-016-2798-0

Cited by 10 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 54 publications

(86 reference statements)

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“…1), a quantification of the saturation of exchange sites with NH 4 is not possible for NFSI. In the mineral soil, soil solution concentrations of NH 4 are usually very low due to retention in the organic layer and nitrification Schwarz et al 2016). Corre et al (2007) found for German forest sites on a N deposition gradient, that microbial NH 4 retention was more important than abiotic NH 4 retention.…”

Section: Base Saturationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil Acidification in German Forest Soils

et al. 2019

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Section: Base Saturationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil Acidification in German Forest Soils

et al. 2019

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“…Soil nitrification is likely favored by NH4 + addition as a portion of DN from throughfall. The ratio of NH4 + to NO3is known to decrease from throughfall to soil leachate (Schwarz et al, 2016), suggesting that a fraction of the incoming NH4 + is either immobilized by binding to soil minerals or by uptake into microbial biomass, or is transformed to NO3by nitrification. In addition, fluxes of total nitrogen (TN) showed a strong increase from spring to autumn 2018, indicating that drought also enhanced the export of nitrogen from soil (personal communication)…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drought and rewetting events enhance nitrate leaching and seepage-mediated translocation of microbes from beech forest soils

Krüger

Potthast

Michalzik

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Nitrification in forest soils is often associated with increased leaching of nitrate to deeper soil layers with potential impacts on groundwater resources, further enhanced under scenarios of anthropogenic atmospheric nitrogen deposition and predicted weather extremes. We aimed to disentangle the relationships between soil nitrification potential, seepage-mediated nitrate leaching and the vertical translocation of nitrifiers in soils of a temperate mixed beech forest in central Germany before, during and after the severe summer drought 2018. Leaching of nitrate assessed below the litter layer and in 4, 16 and 30 cm soil depth showed high temporal and vertical variation with maxima at 16 and 30 cm during and after the drought period. Maximum of soil potential nitrification activity of 4.4 mg N kg-1 d-1 only partially coincided with maximum nitrate leaching of 10.5 kg N ha-2. Both ammonia oxidizing bacteria (AOB) and ammonia oxidizing archaea (AOA) were subject to translocation by seepage, and AOB decreased at least by half and AOA increased by one to three orders of magnitude in their abundance in seepage with increasing soil depth. On the level of the total bacterial population, an increasing trend with depth was also observed for Cand. Patescibacteria while Bacteroidetes were strongly mobilized from the litter layer but poorly transported further down. Despite stable population densities in soil over time, abundances of AOA, AOB and total bacteria in seepage increased by one order of magnitude after the onset of autumn rewetting. Predicted future higher frequency of drought periods in temperate regions may result in more frequent seepage-mediated seasonal flushes of nitrate and bacteria from forest soils. Moreover, the observed translocation patterns point to taxon-specific differences in the susceptibility to mobilization, suggesting that only selected topsoil derived microbial groups are likely to affect subsoil or groundwater microbial communities and their functional potential.

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“…Soil quality is a key factor for supporting plant growth and ultimately affecting ecosystem services, including soil carbon (C) sequestration, purifying water by nutrient retention, and maintaining structure and stability of landscape patterns (Doran & Zeiss, 2000; Oren et al, 2001). However, in highly managed plantation forests, low ground cover (in terms of areal coverage) and low diversity may alter soil properties (Lange et al, 2015; Schwarz et al, 2016), resulting in decreasing soil function. This problem is even more serious in landscaped forest in scenic areas, which experience intensive human activity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Urban greening policies have been designed with a goal of improving soil function (Feng et al, 2021; Jones, 2021; Nidzgorski & Hobbie, 2016). While most attention has been focused on overstory trees, the functional diversity of forest understory plants also plays an important role in ecosystem function, including C sequestration and nutrient cycling (Chen, Zhang, et al, 2019; Leppälammi‐Kujansuu et al, 2014; Schulze et al, 2009; Schwarz et al, 2016; Wu et al, 2011). Because urban greening projects often neglect understory plants, research on the influences of different understory vegetation on soil properties is needed in order to provide information for vegetation design and management to improve ecosystem services.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Urban forest design has traditionally focused on esthetic objectives, without consideration of plant functional diversity, and has often excluded understory vegetation. Compared with natural forests with understory vegetation and high plant diversity, these soils of highly managed urban forests can have lower soil nutrient levels (Chen et al, 2020; Chen, Cao, et al, 2019; Schwarz et al, 2016) and microbial biomass (Lei et al, 2021), suggesting an important functional role of diversified plants in maintaining soil quality. Few studies have investigated the influences of different vegetation management practices on soil nutrients and their balance in urban forest, especially for soil C and N bound in microbial biomass, an indicator of soil quality (Schloter et al, 2003).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil quality in urban forests under different understory management practices

et al. 2022

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Forest vegetation management plays an important role in maintaining soil quality and function. In highly managed urban forests, the clearing of understory vegetation has potential to cause loss of soil nutrients, resulting in stoichiometric imbalances and a decrease in soil function. Whether the presence of ornamental understory in urban forests can mitigate the negative influences on soil quality remains highly uncertain.Here, we collected soil samples from a plantation forest in Zijin Shan National Forest Park in two stands, each with three adjacent plots with different understory management practices: one with natural understory vegetation (≥10 species), a second with managed understories of ornamental groundcover [Reineckea carnea (Andrews) Kunth or Ophiopogon bodinieri H.Lév], and a third with cleared understory.Compared with plots with natural understories, we found lower levels of soil total carbon (C), total nitrogen (N), and microbial C and N, in plots with no understories.Correspondingly, ratios of soil C:phosphorus (P) and N:P, and microbial C:N, were lower in the absence of understories in one of the two stands. The magnitude of these effects differed between the two stands, with greater effects observed in the stand with higher soil quality. These influences were smaller with groundcover plants in both stands, particularly O. bodinieri H.Lév. While we cannot rule out the effects of other influences on soil properties, these results offer support for the hypothesis that clearing of understories is potentially detrimental to soil quality, and that maintaining ornamental groundcover can alleviate these adverse influences in urban forest.

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Drivers of nitrogen leaching from organic layers in Central European beech forests

Cited by 10 publications

References 54 publications

Soil Acidification in German Forest Soils

Soil Acidification in German Forest Soils

Drought and rewetting events enhance nitrate leaching and seepage-mediated translocation of microbes from beech forest soils

Soil quality in urban forests under different understory management practices

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