Impact of Natural Forest Succession on Changes in Soil Organic Carbon in the Polish Carpathian Mountains

Abstract

The main driver of the Carpathian landscape is the process of natural forest succession on the semi-natural meadows unique to the region. Moreover, these semi-natural mountain meadows contribute to ecosystem services, although increasing forest areas are recommended by current international policy agendas. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of natural forest succession in the Polish part of Carpathian on changes in soil organic carbon and assess the influence of different soil properties on organic carbon content in across three land-uses. Soil samples were taken from ten transects consist of semi-natural mountain meadow, natural successional forest and old-growth forest, selected in three Polish Carpathian national parks. Measurements of organic carbon, dissolved organic carbon, microbial properties such as microbial biomass carbon, microbial respiration and enzyme activities were made, additionally biochemical indicators calculated. To describe the influence of measured soil parameters and calculated indicators of soil organic carbon changes, the organic carbon dependent variable regression equations across to all studied soils and for the individual land-use and examined layers were evaluated. The overall regression equation indicated that changes of organic carbon general to all investigated soils depended on microbial biomass carbon content, microbial quotient, dissolved organic carbon content and metabolic quotient. The regression models obtained for the individual land use variants and soil layers explained 77% to 99% of the variation in organic carbon. Results showed that natural forest succession caused a decrease in microbial biomass carbon content and successional forest soils characterized less efficient use of organic substrates by microbial biomass.

Physical, chemical and microbiological soil attributes influence soil greenhouse gases fluxes in Atlantic Forest and pine (Pinus taeda) plantations in Brazil

“…The CO 2 is fixed by plants and autotrophic micro‐organisms, converted into organic C forms (plant tissues, root exudates, residues, litter, and decaying organic matter) and used as substrate in metabolic processes by heterotrophic organisms (Abatenh et al, 2018). During the mineralization of SOM, part of the organic C is emitted back to the atmosphere as CO 2 because of soil heterotrophic respiration (Gmach et al, 2020; Sokołowska et al, 2022), or as CH 4 because of anaerobic methanogenesis, although CH 4 may also be assimilated by methanotrophic biomass (Cezar et al, 2021; Mills et al, 2013). Soil physical and chemical conditions drive microbial activity, and, through that, influence the forest fluxes of GHGs.…”

“…The emission and consumption of GHGs are carried out by soil microbiota. Soil CO 2 emission occurs because of microbial heterotrophic respiration resulting in mineralization of soil organic matter (SOM) (Abatenh et al, 2018; Gmach et al, 2020; Peterson et al, 2021; Sokołowska et al, 2022; Vicentini et al, 2019; Wanyama et al, 2019). Soil CH 4 is produced by methanogenic archaea under anaerobic conditions, and it is consumed by methanotrophic bacteria under aerobic conditions (Cezar et al, 2021; Mills et al, 2013).…”