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Phosphorus Loading to Tropical Rain Forest Streams After Clear‐Felling and Burning in Sabah, Malaysia
Author(s) -
Malmer Anders
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
water resources research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.863
H-Index - 217
eISSN - 1944-7973
pISSN - 0043-1397
DOI - 10.1029/96wr00997
Subject(s) - streams , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , erosion , felling , phosphorus , rainforest , detritus , particulates , prescribed burn , forestry , ecology , agroforestry , geology , chemistry , geography , computer network , paleontology , geotechnical engineering , organic chemistry , computer science , biology
Most estimates of P export from natural or disturbed humid tropical ecosystems by streams have been based only on export of dissolved P, even though P often is limiting and can be expected to be strongly associated to particles. Therefore loss of ignition (LOI) and particulate P (P part ) analyses were made on organic and inorganic detritus resulting from surface erosion and on stream‐suspended sediments in an undisturbed rain forest (control), as well as during and after conversion of rain forest into forest plantation. Control forest surface erosion and stream sediments consisted mainly of organics, and dissolved P (P diss ) dominated over P part in stream water. The same relation was found after conversion, with a maximum mean P diss /P part ratio of up to 10 after burning, compared with 2–2.5 for control forests. This larger difference was assumed to depend on PO 4 dissolved from ashes to larger concentrations than could be adsorbed during the short time (<1 hour) to reach peak flow during rainstorms.