The influence of soil texture and vegetation on soil moisture under rainout shelters in a semi-desert grassland

English, Nathan B.; Weltzin, Jake F.; Fravolini, A.; Thomas, Lisa P.; Williams, David G.

doi:10.1016/j.jaridenv.2005.03.013

Cited by 120 publications

(91 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…The soil at the afforestation site had a relatively higher percentage of soil moisture than the soil at the control site, likely due to the higher clay content and the presence of vegetation in the afforestation site. Such results support the evidence that soil texture (especially clay content) and vegetation are important factors in determining the proportion of soil moisture (English et al 2005, Kara & Bolat 2008.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Influences of Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) afforestation on soil microbial biomass and activity

Bolat¹,

Kara²,

Şensoy³

et al. 2016

iForest

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© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionSoil health and quality may be successfully monitored through the use of two microbial indexes: (i) the microbial biomass, which is defined by the living component of soil organic matter, excluding the macrofauna and plant roots; and (ii) soil microbial respiration (basal respiration), which is described by the respiration without the addition of an organic substrate to soil (Jenkinson & Ladd 1981, Alef 1995, Sparling 1997. The microbial biomass is small and labile as compared with other ecosystem components; however, because of its key role in the mineralization of nutrients such as C, N, P and S, it is considered a reliable indicator of changes in soil characteristics (Jenkinson & Ladd 1981, Powlson et al. 1987, Balota et al. 2003. Balota et al. (2013) report that changes in the microbial properties of soil may lead to important changes in soil quality, thus affecting nutrient cycling and plant development. Haris (2003) clearly affirmed that the microbial community serves as an indicator of the re-establishment of connections between ecological functions of the biota in disturbed ecosystems. Despite the large variations in mineralogy, soil texture and land use type, extreme environments usually show low organic matter and very low microbial biomass contents, which indicate poor soil quality and limited site productivity (Sparling 1997, Guénon et al. 2013.Soil basal respiration is a well-established parameter to be measured through the decomposition process, and it is defined as the overall activity or energy spent by the indigenous microbial pool (Anderson & Domsch 1990, Sparling 1997. Insam et al. (1991) argued that soil basal respiration reflects the availability of slow-flowing C for microbial permanence and is a measure of basic turnover rates in soil.Robinia pesudoacacia L. (black locust or false acacia) is a deciduous, broad-leaved, light-demanding, medium-sized pioneer tree ranging in height 20-25 m. Black locust is regarded as an invasive, non-indigenous species in many parts of Europe, such as Germany, Italy and Turkey (Ansin & Özkan 1997, Cierjacks et al. 2013. It is well-adapted to grow on different types of soil and environmetal conditions, though it avoids compacted or wet soils. Indeed, its demand for aerated soil is the reason why black locust can be primarily found in disturbed sites from poor to fertile soils (Sabo 2000, Cierjacks et al. 2013. Black locust shows a rapid growth and adaptability, for it has been utilized for soil conservation or fuel wood, as well as for early reforestation of barren soils at disturbed sites (Landgraf et al. 2005, Keskin & Makineci 2009, Noh et al. 2010). However, in Turkey it has been long cultivated as an ornamental plant and it can be currently found in schoolyards, roadsides or other marginal lands (Ansin & Özkan 1997). This tree species is characterized by an extensive root system (Zhou & Shangguan 2005) nodulated by diverse nitrogen-fixing Rhizobium communities, providing the host with an advantage over na...

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 87%

Influences of Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) afforestation on soil microbial biomass and activity

Bolat¹,

Kara²,

Şensoy³

et al. 2016

iForest

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“…In Hainich-Dün and especially in the SchorfheideChorin plots, soil moisture deficit decreased with depth. This is in line with the findings of English et al (2005), who found a decrease of soil moisture deficit with depth. The reason for the difference in behavior of the Schwäbische Alb plots in soil moisture drought response is twofold: the reduction is always relative, not absolute, which leads to more pronounced deficits in areas with higher precipitation.…”

Section: Roof Effect On Air Temperature Air Humidity and Soil Moisturesupporting

confidence: 93%

Drought in forest understory ecosystems – a novel rainfall reduction experiment

et al. 2015

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Abstract. Precipitation patterns across Central Europe are expected to change over the 21st century due to climate change. This may reduce water availability during the plantgrowing season and hence affect the performance and vitality of forest ecosystems. We established a novel rainfall reduction experiment on nine sites in Germany to investigate drought effects on soil-forest-understory ecosystems. A realistic, but extreme annual drought with a return period of 40 years, which corresponds to the 2.5 % percentile of the annual precipitation, was imposed. At all sites, we were able to reach the target values of rainfall reduction, while other important ecosystem variables like air temperature, humidity, and soil temperature remained unaffected due to the novel design of a flexible roof. The first year of drought showed considerable changes in the soil moisture dynamics relative to the control sites, which affected leaf stomatal conductance of understory species as well as evapotranspiration rates of the forest understory.

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“…To assess the impacts of drought, rainfall exclusion experiments are valuable and often applied tools (e.g., English et al, 2005;Phillips et al, 2009;Da Costa et al, 2010;Kopittke et al, 2014), in addition to elevated CO 2 concentrations (e.g., Dermody et al, 2007), and nighttime warming (e.g., Albert et al, 2011;Selsted et al, 2012). While many studies focus on single aspects of drought effects like plant growth and seedling activity (Meijer et al, 2011;Wu and Chen, 2013) or on particular ecosystems like grassland (Suttle and Thomsen, 2007;Bütof et al, 2012) and heather ecosystems (Albert et al, 2011;Selsted et al, 2012), only few studies focus on forest ecosystems or take a closer look at drought impacts on soils where often only soil moisture is observed to change and no variations in other soil properties are monitored (Ozolinčius et al, 2009;Albert et al, 2011;Glaser et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does drought alter hydrological functions in forest soils?

Gimbel¹,

Puhlmann²,

Weiler³

2016

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Climate change is expected to impact the water cycle and severely affect precipitation patterns across central Europe and in other parts of the world, leading to more frequent and severe droughts. Usually when projecting drought impacts on hydrological systems, it is assumed that system properties, like soil properties, remain stable and will not be affected by drought events. To study if this assumption is appropriate, we address the effects of drought on the infiltration behavior of forest soils using dye tracer experiments on six sites in three regions across Germany, which were forced into drought conditions. The sites cover clayey-, loamy-and sandy-textured soils. In each region, we compared a deciduous and a coniferous forest stand to address differences between the main tree species. The results of the dye tracer experiments show clear evidence for changes in infiltration behavior at the sites. The infiltration changed at the clayey plots from regular and homogeneous flow to fast preferential flow. Similar behavior was observed at the loamy plots, where large areas in the upper layers remained dry, displaying signs of strong water repellency. This was confirmed by water drop penetration time (WDPT) tests, which revealed, in all except one plot, moderate to severe water repellency. Water repellency was also accountable for the change of regular infiltration to fingered flow in the sandy soils. The results of this study suggest that the drought history or, more generally, the climatic conditions of a soil in the past are more important than the actual antecedent soil moisture status regarding hydrophobicity and infiltration behavior; furthermore, drought effects on infiltration need to be considered in hydrological models to obtain realistic predictions concerning water quality and quantity in runoff and groundwater recharge.

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The influence of soil texture and vegetation on soil moisture under rainout shelters in a semi-desert grassland

Cited by 120 publications

References 36 publications

Influences of Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) afforestation on soil microbial biomass and activity

Influences of Black Locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) afforestation on soil microbial biomass and activity

Drought in forest understory ecosystems – a novel rainfall reduction experiment

Does drought alter hydrological functions in forest soils?

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