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Contribution of dead wood to the carbon flux in forested streams
Author(s) -
Elosegi Arturo,
Díez Joserra,
Pozo Jesús
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
earth surface processes and landforms
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.294
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1096-9837
pISSN - 0197-9337
DOI - 10.1002/esp.1549
Subject(s) - streams , deciduous , environmental science , plant litter , eucalyptus , litter , flux (metallurgy) , ecosystem , alder , snag , organic matter , nutrient , temperate deciduous forest , hydrology (agriculture) , ecology , habitat , chemistry , biology , geology , computer network , geotechnical engineering , organic chemistry , computer science
Dead wood has been identified as an important structural component of stream ecosystems, and researchers have stressed its role in retaining sediments and organic matter, increasing habitat diversity and providing refugia for aquatic organisms. Because it is a highly refractory compound, known to take very long periods to break down underwater, it has been considered a slow source of dissolved or fine particulate organic matter. We evaluated the contribution of dead wood to the total carbon flux in two headwater forested streams in northern Spain, one running under mature deciduous forest, the other under eucalyptus plantations. Breakdown rates were measured from branches (10 cm long, 3 cm in diameter) of alder, oak and eucalyptus, the main species present at the streams, applied to the standing crop of fine dead wood following four different models and compared with the breakdown loss of leaf litter calculated in a previous work for the same reaches. Calculations showed breakdown losses of fine wood (FW, diameter 1–5 cm) to range from 6·0 to 12·3 g ash‐free dry mass (AFDM) m −2 y −1 at the deciduous stream and from 4·6 to 7·1 g AFDM m −2 y −1 at the eucalyptus stream. Conservative assumptions show that fine wood breakdown losses amount to 21% of the mass lost by leaf breakdown at the deciduous stream and to 9% of leaf breakdown at the eucalyptus stream. So, fine dead wood contributes to a significant fraction of the total breakdown of allochthonous organic matter in the studied streams; other sizes of dead wood (twigs, coarse wood) increase the breakdown by an order of magnitude, and thus can result in a large part of the carbon flux being derived from wood. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.