Vegetation Type and Age Drive Changes in Soil Properties, Nitrogen, and Carbon Sequestration in Urban Parks under Cold Climate

Setälä, Heikki; Francini, Gaia; Allen, John; Hui, Nan; Jumpponen, Ari; Kotze, David Johannes

doi:10.3389/fevo.2016.00093

Cited by 91 publications

(109 citation statements)

References 84 publications

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“…As edaphic conditions in the intermediate and old parks were different from those in young urban parks (Setälä et al ., ), we expected differences in the composition of microbial communities. Our hypothesis was only partly verified, as the intermediate and old parks, irrespective of plant functional group, shared similar soil properties as well as bacterial and fungal communities.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Even though these parks shared lawn as ground cover, we considered the forested stands with evergreen and coniferous trees – but without a lawn equivalent – as the most relevant control for two reasons: (i) natural grasslands are rare in the boreal taiga belt and (ii) our experiment was primarily designed to compare the effects of trees on the soil microbial community. Our previous analyses have shown that soils in these forest and park sites as well as within the parks differ in their carbon and nitrogen stocks (Setälä et al ., ). In the current study, we focused on biotic soil attributes and hypothesized that:…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Thus, the successional age of the ecosystem and the age of individual plants likely influence microbial communities (Banning et al ., ; Blaško et al ., ; Wu et al ., ), because soil properties including pH, total C and total N tend to change with plant age (Park et al ., ). Similar to natural systems, soil chemical properties can vary in predictable ways with age of development in urban green spaces (Setälä et al ., ) and microbial communities often shift with changes in edaphic conditions (Prescott and Grayston, ; Liu et al ., ). Urban areas have been considered socio‐ecological systems where ecological processes do not necessarily follow those documented in natural systems (Cadenasso et al ., ; Pickett et al ., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil microbial communities are shaped by vegetation type and park age in cities under cold climate

Hui

Jumpponen

Francini

et al. 2017

Environmental Microbiology

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130

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Soil microbes play a key role in controlling ecosystem functions and providing ecosystem services. Yet, microbial communities in urban green space soils remain poorly characterized. Here we compared soil microbial communities in 41 urban parks of (i) divergent plant functional types (evergreen trees, deciduous trees and lawn) and (ii) different ages (constructed 10, ∼50 and >100 years ago). These microbial communities were also compared to those in 5 control forests in southern Finland. Our results indicate that, despite frequent disturbances in urban parks, urban soil microbes still followed the classic patterns typical of plant-microbe associations in natural environments: both bacterial and fungal communities in urban parks responded to plant functional groups, but fungi were under tighter control of plants than bacteria. We show that park age shaped the composition of microbial communities, possibly because vegetation in old parks have had a longer time to modify soil properties and microbial communities than in young parks. Furthermore, control forests harboured distinct but less diverse soil microbial communities than urban parks that are under continuous anthropogenic disturbance. Our results highlight the importance of maintaining a diverse portfolio of urban green spaces and plant communities therein to facilitate complex microbial communities and functions in urban systems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Soil microbial communities are shaped by vegetation type and park age in cities under cold climate

Hui

Jumpponen

Francini

et al. 2017

Environmental Microbiology

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130

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“…, Setälä et al. ). There are also substantial differences in colonization potential as urban grasslands are often poorly connected (Hejkal et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Urban meadows as an alternative to short mown grassland: effects of composition and height on biodiversity

Norton

Bending

Clark

et al. 2019

Ecological Applications

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There are increasing calls to provide greenspace in urban areas, yet the ecological quality, as well as quantity, of greenspace is important. Short mown grassland designed for recreational use is the dominant form of urban greenspace in temperate regions but requires considerable maintenance and typically provides limited habitat value for most taxa. Alternatives are increasingly proposed, but the biodiversity potential of these is not well understood. In a replicated experiment across six public urban greenspaces, we used nine different perennial meadow plantings to quantify the relative roles of floristic diversity and height of sown meadows on the richness and composition of three taxonomic groups: plants, invertebrates, and soil microbes. We found that all meadow treatments were colonized by plant species not sown in the plots, suggesting that establishing sown meadows does not preclude further locally determined grassland development if management is appropriate. Colonizing species were rarer in taller and more diverse plots, indicating competition may limit invasion rates. Urban meadow treatments contained invertebrate and microbial communities that differed from mown grassland. Invertebrate taxa responded to changes in both height and richness of meadow vegetation, but most orders were more abundant where vegetation height was longer than mown grassland. Order richness also increased in longer vegetation and Coleoptera family richness increased with plant diversity in summer. Microbial community composition seems sensitive to plant species composition at the soil surface (0–10 cm), but in deeper soils (11–20 cm) community variation was most responsive to plant height, with bacteria and fungi responding differently. In addition to improving local residents’ site satisfaction, native perennial meadow plantings can produce biologically diverse grasslands that support richer and more abundant invertebrate communities, and restructured plant, invertebrate, and soil microbial communities compared with short mown grassland. Our results suggest that diversification of urban greenspace by planting urban meadows in place of some mown amenity grassland is likely to generate substantial biodiversity benefits, with a mosaic of meadow types likely to maximize such benefits.

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“…The lowest mean pH (7.10; neutral) was identified at the 36‐yr‐old golf course, with older golf courses having moderately alkaline pH (80 yr = 7.92; 93 yr = 7.84) and younger golf courses having significantly higher soil pH (13 yr = 8.29; 19 yr = 8.52) when combining both soil depths (Table 4). The upper soil depth was less basic than the lower depth, which may indicate altered soil pH from management inputs or reflect pH reductions from increased SOM content (Ritchie & Dolling, 1985; Setälä et al., 2016). Alkaline soil pH is common to the region because of climatic conditions and carbonate accumulation (Holliday, 1990).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil carbon sequestration in bermudagrass golf course fairways in Lubbock, Texas

Gautam¹,

Young

Sapkota

et al. 2020

Agronomy Journal

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Turfgrasses benefit the environment through conversion of CO2 into stable C stored in soils. Limited research on the sequestration potential of bermudagrass (Cynodon spp.) has been conducted in semiarid climates. The objective of this study was to evaluate soil physiochemical properties of golf courses in Lubbock, TX, to determine C sequestration potential and longevity. Soil was obtained from fairways of five golf courses ranging in age from 13 to 93 yr. Shallow (0–7.5 cm) and deeper (7.5–15 cm) soil depths were tested for soil pH, electrical conductivity, soil organic matter, soil organic C (SOC), inorganic C, total N, inorganic N, and texture. After ANOVA and mean separation, principal component analysis (PCA) was used to group golf courses by soil depth or age. Soil organic matter and SOC decreased with depth, but the rate of SOC accumulation (0.22 Mg C ha−1 yr−1) was lower when compared with previous studies. Maximal C (35.1 and 23.7 Mg C ha−1 in the upper and lower depths) was consistent with previous studies, indicating that C accumulated for a longer period of time. The PCA explained 52.7% of variability in soil physiochemical properties on two axes, but PCA more effectively differentiated soil sampling depth than golf course age. High variability in data among fairways at a single golf course likely resulted in limited grouping capabilities. Including a broader regional representation of golf courses or sampling golf courses between 40 and 70 yr to quantify soils near maximal accumulation would strengthen future studies.

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Vegetation Type and Age Drive Changes in Soil Properties, Nitrogen, and Carbon Sequestration in Urban Parks under Cold Climate

Cited by 91 publications

References 84 publications

Soil microbial communities are shaped by vegetation type and park age in cities under cold climate

Soil microbial communities are shaped by vegetation type and park age in cities under cold climate

Urban meadows as an alternative to short mown grassland: effects of composition and height on biodiversity

Soil carbon sequestration in bermudagrass golf course fairways in Lubbock, Texas

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