Influence of afforestation on soil: The case of mineral weathering

Abstract

30Although concerns have been raised that increased nutrient demand by fast 31 growing tree species could deplete soil nutrient pools, recent research suggests that some 32 species are able to obtain nutrients via soil mineral weathering. Hybrid poplars, which are

Effects of Calamagrostis epigejos, Chamaenerion palustre and Tussilago farfara on nutrient availability and microbial activity in the surface layer of spoil heaps after hard coal mining

“…Such a positive effect of plants on the pool of nutrients might have different explanations. Nutrients may be derived directly from plants, or other plant-controlled sources, for example, from airborne dust particles, the deposition and accumulation of which is enhanced by the presence of plant cover (Chadwick et al, 1999), or from soil/waste minerals weathering due to physical and chemical influences of plants For the significance of the differences between two age categories, i.e., young (white bars) and old (gray bars) spoil heaps, and the significance of the two-factor interaction see Table 2. and their fungal symbionts (Gregory, 2006;Koele et al, 2014;Lafleur et al, 2013;Reich et al, 2005). Unfortunately, the precise identification of the fate of spoil nutrients was impossible in this study.…”

Poplar growth and wood production on a grassland irrigated for decades with potato starch wastewater

“…Nitrate is easily available as highly mobile anions in the top soil and may be taken up by plant roots. Poplars have a strong preference for N-NO 3 -dominated soil solutions (Woolfolk and Friend 2003) at low soil pH (Lafleur et al 2013). An about 1.5-fold increase (p = 0.0002) in the C:N ratio in the rhizosphere soil and its value near 10 after GS3, together with high nitrate concentrations, may indicate accelerated OM biodegradability as well as N mineralization and nitrification process, in which ammonium is converted to nitrate by nitrifying bacteria (Stauffer et al 2014).…”

“…Rhizosphere acidification might improve the mobilization and availability of soil elements (i.e. Ca, Mg, K, Fe and P) (Hinsinger et al 2011;Lafleur et al 2013) and thereby enhance nutrient uptake. The consequence of the latter may be the relatively high concentration of elements in the leaves and roots of planted poplar (Tables 1, 2 in supplementary material), similar to the values reported by others (Ciadamidaro et al 2014;Kabata-Pendias and Pendias 2001), despite very low concentrations of e.g.…”

“…Mg, Ca and Fe in the rhizosphere soil after GS3 (Tables 1, 2). The increase in bioavailability of nutrients could better satisfy the high nutrient demand of poplar for biomass growth, but at the same time could lead to depletion of base cations in soil (Lafleur et al 2013), which was seen for Ca (Table 1), especially in the rhizosphere of ERI on grassland after GS3 (Table 3). In addition, the increased availability of P-PO 4 through dissolving P-minerals (Hinsinger et al 2011) is probably not sufficient for growing poplar, as indicated by the high activity of Acid-Phase (221 ± 4 lg p-NP g -1 DM h -1 , Fig.…”

Long-term base cation weathering rates in forested catchments of the Canadian Shield

“…The data for soil mineralogy have been published previously (Houle et al, 2012a) and their method of acquisition was described in detail elsewhere (Houle et al, 2012a;Lafleur et al, 2013). Briefly, bulk elemental composition of the B composite samples was obtained by XRF, as above.…”