Tropical montane cloud forests (TMCFs) harbour high levels of biodiversity and large carbon stocks. Their location at high elevations make them especially sensitive to climate change, because a warming climate is enhancing upslope species migration, but human disturbance (especially fire) may in many cases be pushing the treeline downslope. TMCFs are increasingly being affected by fire, and the long-term effects of fire are still unknown. Here, we present a 28-year chronosequence to assess the effects of fire and recovery pathways of burned TMCFs, with a detailed analysis of carbon stocks, forest structure and diversity. We assessed rates of change of carbon (C) stock pools, forest structure and tree-size distribution pathways and tested several hypotheses regarding metabolic scaling theory (MST), C recovery and biodiversity. We found four different C stock recovery pathways depending on the selected C pool and time since last fire, with a recovery of total C stocks but not of aboveground C stocks. In terms of forest structure, there was an increase in the number of small stems in the burned forests up to 5-9 years after fire because of regeneration patterns, but no differences on larger trees between burned and unburned plots in the long term. In support of MST, after fire, forest structure appears to approximate steady-state size distribution in less than 30 years. However, our results also provide new evidence that the species recovery of TMCF after fire is idiosyncratic and follows multiple pathways. While fire increased species richness, it also enhanced species dissimilarity with geographical distance. This is the first study to report a long-term chronosequence of recovery pathways to fire suggesting faster recovery rates than previously reported, but at the expense of biodiversity and aboveground C stocks.
<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> Montane tropical soils are a large carbon (C) reservoir, acting as both a source and a sink of CO<sub>2</sub>. Enhanced CO<sub>2</sub> emissions originate, in large part, from the decomposition and losses of soil organic matter (SOM) following anthropogenic disturbances. Therefore, quantitative knowledge of the stabilization and decomposition of SOM is necessary in order to understand, assess and predict the impact of land management in the tropics. In particular, labile SOM is an early and sensitive indicator of how SOM responds to changes in land use and management practices, which could have major implications for long term carbon storage and rising atmospheric CO<sub>2</sub> concentrations. The aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of grazing and fire history on soil C dynamics in the Peruvian montane grasslands; an understudied ecosystem, which covers approximately a quarter of the land area in Peru. A combination of density and particle-size fractionation was used to quantify the labile and stable organic matter pools, along with soil CO<sub>2</sub> flux and decomposition measurements. <br><br> Grazing and burning together significantly increased soil CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes and decomposition rates and reduced temperature as a driver. Although there was no significant effect of land use on total soil C stocks, the combination of burning and grazing decreased the proportion of C in the free LF, especially at the lower depths (10&#8211;20 and 20&#8211;30&#8201;cm). The free LF in the control soils made 20&#8201;% of the bulk soil mass and 30&#8201;% of the soil C content compared to the burnt-grazed soils, which had the smallest recovery of free LF (10&#8201;%) and significantly lower C content (14&#8201;%). The burnt soils had a much higher proportion of C in the occluded LF (12&#8201;%) compared to the non-burnt soils (7&#8201;%) and there was no significant difference among the treatments in the heavy F (~&#8201;70&#8201;%). <br><br> The synergistic effect of burning and grazing caused changes to the soil C dynamics. CO<sub>2</sub> fluxes were increased and the dominant temperature driver was obscured by some other process, such as changes in plant C and N allocation promoting autotrophic respiration. In addition, the free LF was negatively affected when these two anthropogenic activities took place on the same site. Most likely a result of reduced detritus being incorporated into the soil. A positive finding from this study is that the total soil C stocks were not significantly affected and the long term C storage in the occluded LF and heavy F were not negatively impacted. Possibly this is because of low intensity fire, fire-resilient grasses and the grazing pressure is below the threshold to cause severe degradation.</p>
Abstract. Montane tropical soils are a large carbon (C) reservoir, acting as both a source and a sink of CO 2 . Enhanced CO 2 emissions originate, in large part, from the decomposition and losses of soil organic matter (SOM) following anthropogenic disturbances. Therefore, quantitative knowledge of the stabilization and decomposition of SOM is necessary in order to understand, assess and predict the impact of land management in the tropics. In particular, labile SOM is an early and sensitive indicator of how SOM responds to changes in land use and management practices, which could have major implications for long-term carbon storage and rising atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. The aim of this study was to investigate the impacts of grazing and fire history on soil C dynamics in the Peruvian montane grasslands, an understudied ecosystem, which covers approximately a quarter of the land area in Peru. A density fractionation method was used to quantify the labile and stable organic matter pools, along with soil CO 2 flux and decomposition measurements. Grazing and burning together significantly increased soil CO 2 fluxes and decomposition rates and reduced temperature as a driver. Although there was no significant effect of land use on total soil C stocks, the combination of burning and grazing decreased the proportion of C in the free light fraction (LF), especially at the lower depths (10-20 and 20-30 cm). In the control soils, 20 % of the material recovered was in the free LF, which contained 30 % of the soil C content. In comparison, the burnt-grazed soil had the smallest recovery of the free LF (10 %) and a significantly lower C content (14 %). The burnt soils had a much higher proportion of C in the occluded LF (12 %) compared to the not-burnt soils (7 %) and there was no significant difference among the treatments in the heavy fraction (F) (∼ 70 %). The synergistic effect of burning and grazing caused changes to the soil C dynamics. CO 2 fluxes were increased and the dominant temperature driver was obscured by some other process, such as changes in plant C and N allocation. In addition, the free LF was reduced when these two anthropogenic activities took place on the same site -most likely a result of reduced detritus being incorporated into the soil. A positive finding from this study is that the total soil C stocks were not significantly affected and the long-term (+10 years) C storage in the occluded LF and heavy F were not negatively impacted. Possibly this is because of low-intensity fire, fire-resilient grasses and because the grazing pressure is below the threshold necessary to cause severe degradation.
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