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The contribution of fresh litter to dissolved organic carbon leached from a coniferous forest floor
Author(s) -
Fröberg M.,
Berggren Kleja D.,
Hagedorn F.
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
european journal of soil science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.244
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2389
pISSN - 1351-0754
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2389.2006.00812.x
Subject(s) - forest floor , dissolved organic carbon , lysimeter , litter , leaching (pedology) , plant litter , environmental chemistry , total organic carbon , chemistry , organic matter , zoology , soil horizon , soil water , environmental science , agronomy , soil science , nutrient , biology , organic chemistry
Summary The relative contributions of litter and humified organic matter as the source of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) leached from organic layers of forest soils are poorly understood. In the present investigation, 13 C labelled spruce litter was used to study the role of recent litter in the leaching of DOC from a coniferous forest floor in southern Sweden, while litterbags were used to quantify the total loss of C from the labelled litter. The labelled litter applied on bare lysimeters released considerable amounts of DOC during the first weeks, but the concentration of DOC originating from labelled litter decreased gradually from 176 mg litre −1 during the first sampling period in May to 5 mg litre −1 in the last sampling period in October. Only a moderate flush of DOC from the labelled litter occurred under the Oe and Oa horizons, with concentrations of 20 and 6 mg litre −1 from labelled litter, equal to 19 and 9% of the total DOC flux, respectively, during the first sampling period. Total flux of DOC from labelled litter from May to September was 16 g m −2 , whereas only 2.2 and 0.9 g m −2 were captured under the Oe and Oa horizons, respectively. The almost complete loss of new DOC implies that DOC leached from the Oe and Oa horizons consists not of recent litter‐derived carbon, but of DOC produced in these two horizons themselves. Water‐extractable organic carbon from labelled litter left in litterbags in the field for 4 months consisted of about one‐third native carbon from external sources at the experimental site and two‐thirds of the labelled litter. In contrast, the 13 C content of the bulk litter from the litterbags was not changed by the incubation in the field. We suggest that the soluble native carbon in water extracts originated from throughfall DOC that had been assimilated by microorganisms in the litterbags.