Anthropogenic Disturbances Shape Soil Capillary and Saturated Water Retention Indirectly via Plant Functional Traits and Soil Organic Carbon in Temperate Forests

Abstract

Soil’s water-physical properties support essential soil water retention functions for driving water distribution and availability, which is vital for plant growth and biogeochemical cycling. However, the question concerning how tree compositions and their interactions with other abiotic factors modulate soil’s water-physical properties in disturbed forests remains poorly understood. Based on observational data from nine permanent forest sites (18,747 trees and 210 plots) in the northeast of China, where forests once undergone three different levels of anthropogenic logging disturbance, we evaluated how multiple biotic (i.e., tree diversity and functional trait composition) and abiotic (soil texture and soil organic carbon) factors influence water-physical properties (i.e., in terms of soil capillary water retention (WC) and soil saturated water retention (WS)) in temperate forests. We found that the impacts of logging disturbance on soil water-physical properties were associated with improved tree diversity, acquisitive functional traits, and SOC. These associated attributes were also positively related to WC and WS, while there was no significant effect from soil texture. Moreover, disturbance indirectly affected soil water-physical properties mainly by functional traits and SOC, as acquisitive functional traits significantly mediate the effect from disturbance on WC and SOC mediates the influence from disturbance on WS. Finally, our results emphasize the potential relationships of tree composition with SOC and soil water retention as compared with soil texture and hence suggest that plants can actively modulate their abiotic contexts after disturbance, which is meaningful for understanding forest health and resistance.

Carbon storage potential of Eucalyptus urophylla at several density levels and forest management types in dry land ecosystems

“…The community's dependence on E. urophylla forests is inevitable due to the lack of alternative energy sources (Pandey et al 2020). Anthropogenic pressure also affects the accumulation of carbon in a forest ecosystem (Eddy et al 2021;Liu et al 2021). Disturbances, including clearing of agricultural and plantation land as well as illegal logging and mining activities, contribute to the decrease in the population of trees.…”

“…Land cover plays an essential role in controlling carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions as well as its storage in forest stands (Olorunfemi et al 2019). The ongoing destruction of ecosystems reduces their ability to absorb carbon (McNicol et al 2018;Chen et al 2019;Liu et al 2021). Forest encroachment, timber theft, fire outbreak, livestock release, and shifting cultivation are factors that can also trigger an increase in CO2 emissions.…”

“…Forest encroachment, timber theft, fire outbreak, livestock release, and shifting cultivation are factors that can also trigger an increase in CO2 emissions. This is caused by uncontrolled human activities, which often lead to enormous climate changes (Dako et al 2019;Liu et al 2021). Furthermore, this phenomenon is characterized by increasingly uncontrolled global warming (Palacios Peñaranda et al 2019;Olorunfemi et al 2019).…”

Soil Macrofauna Diversity and Litter Decomposition Rate in the Buffer Zone of Lore Lindu Biosphere Reserve Indonesia

“…The presence of buffer zone is important as its management is directed at managing and utilizing land through community forests, community plantation forests, horticulture, food crops, and so on [6,7]. The buffer zone of Lore Lindu National Park has been converted to agricultural land (agroforestry and monoculture) and utilized by the community, causing a significant reduction of available soil organic matter (SOM) [8]. The main reasons for the reduction are the decreasing number of individuals and type of vegetation and the disturbances to the physical soil due to land cultivation [1].…”

“…The composition and abundance of soil macrofauna species decreased along with changes in habitat type [1]. It implies that each type of macrofauna plays an important role in the ecosystem cycle: the higher the species diversity of macrofauna, the higher the stability of the forest ecosystem [8]. In addition, each type of soil macrofauna showed a different response to the environmental conditions [15].…”