Effects of organic matter removal, soil compaction and vegetation control on 10th year biomass and foliar nutrition: LTSP continent-wide comparisons

Ponder, Felix; Fleming, Richard A.; Berch, Shannon M.; Busse, Matt D.; Elioff, John D.; Hazlett, P. W.; Kabzems, Richard; Kranabetter, J. M.; Morris, David; Page‐Dumroese, Deborah S.; Palik, Brian J.; Powers, Robert F.; Sanchez, Felipe G.; Stagg, Richard H.; Stone, Douglas M.; Young, David H.; Zhang, Jianwei; Ludovici, Kim H.; McKenney, Daniel W.; Mossa, D.S.; Sanborn, Paul; Voldseth, Richard A.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2012.04.014

Cited by 111 publications

(67 citation statements)

References 89 publications

(122 reference statements)

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“…Whereas a meta-analysis of 45 LTSP sites found no consistent effect of harvesting on tree biomass (Ponder et al, 2012), a meta-analysis of 139 reports of soil microbial responses to forest disturbance found that harvesting significantly affects microbial biomass, substrate-induced respiration and microbial community structure (Holden and Treseder, 2013). The present study is important in this context, because it demonstrates long-term effects of harvesting (410 years) and shows that these effects extend to genes critical for carbon cycling.…”

Section: Forest Harvesting Has Long-term Effects On Biodegradation Pomentioning

confidence: 59%

“…Several studies have shown immediate effects of harvesting on soil communities (Busse et al, 2006;Smith et al, 2007). However, few studies have examined long-term effects that might impact sustainable forest productivity, and those have shown small or inconsistent effects and lack of differentiation among harvesting regimes (Ponder et al, 2012). Because tree regeneration can take decades, long-term effects of harvesting are critical to evaluating the sustainability of forest management.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forest harvesting reduces the soil metagenomic potential for biomass decomposition

et al. 2015

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Soil is the key resource that must be managed to ensure sustainable forest productivity. Soil microbial communities mediate numerous essential ecosystem functions, and recent studies show that forest harvesting alters soil community composition. From a long-term soil productivity study site in a temperate coniferous forest in British Columbia, 21 forest soil shotgun metagenomes were generated, totaling 187 Gb. A method to analyze unassembled metagenome reads from the complex community was optimized and validated. The subsequent metagenome analysis revealed that, 12 years after forest harvesting, there were 16% and 8% reductions in relative abundances of biomass decomposition genes in the organic and mineral soil layers, respectively. Organic and mineral soil layers differed markedly in genetic potential for biomass degradation, with the organic layer having greater potential and being more strongly affected by harvesting. Gene families were disproportionately affected, and we identified 41 gene families consistently affected by harvesting, including families involved in lignin, cellulose, hemicellulose and pectin degradation. The results strongly suggest that harvesting profoundly altered below-ground cycling of carbon and other nutrients at this site, with potentially important consequences for forest regeneration. Thus, it is important to determine whether these changes foreshadow long-term changes in forest productivity or resilience and whether these changes are broadly characteristic of harvested forests.

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Section: Forest Harvesting Has Long-term Effects On Biodegradation Pomentioning

confidence: 59%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest harvesting reduces the soil metagenomic potential for biomass decomposition

et al. 2015

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“…However, for soil hemicellulolytic populations, those residues did little to offset the disturbance associated with harvesting. Accordingly, previous studies have shown only small differences in the effects of OM1 versus OM2 on overall bacterial and fungal communities (Hartmann et al, 2012) and small or no differences in effects on soil chemistry and tree growth (Ponder et al, 2012). The OM3 treatment, involving removal of whole trees plus forest floor, is a very severe disturbance, which was previously found to impact the overall soil microbial community due to the loss of nutrients and habitat (Simard et al, 2003;Hartmann et al, 2012).…”

Section: Harvesting Impacts On Hemicellulolytic Microbes Htc Leung Et Almentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Hemicellulolytic populations were more severely affected by harvesting in PP versus the IDF ecozone (Supplementary Figure S5). Interestingly, this is one of few ecozones in which tree regeneration was affected by harvesting method, being stimulated by increasing levels of OM removal (Fleming et al, 2006;Ponder et al, 2012). Of the six ecozones sampled for this study, the PP ecozone has an extreme precipitation regime, with the highest annual precipitation but the lowest precipitation Figure 7 Effects of harvesting treatments on relative abundances of major hemicellulolytic OTUs in the IDF and PP ecozones (*bars denote significant pairwise differences, Po0.05).…”

Section: Harvesting Impacts On Hemicellulolytic Microbes Htc Leung Et Almentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term effects of timber harvesting on hemicellulolytic microbial populations in coniferous forest soils

et al. 2015

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Forest ecosystems need to be sustainably managed, as they are major reservoirs of biodiversity, provide important economic resources and modulate global climate. We have a poor knowledge of populations responsible for key biomass degradation processes in forest soils and the effects of forest harvesting on these populations. Here, we investigated the effects of three timber-harvesting methods, varying in the degree of organic matter removal, on putatively hemicellulolytic bacterial and fungal populations 10 or more years after harvesting and replanting. We used stable-isotope probing to identify populations that incorporated 13C from labeled hemicellulose, analyzing 13C-enriched phospholipid fatty acids, bacterial 16 S rRNA genes and fungal ITS regions. In soil microcosms, we identified 104 bacterial and 52 fungal hemicellulolytic operational taxonomic units (OTUs). Several of these OTUs are affiliated with taxa not previously reported to degrade hemicellulose, including the bacterial genera Methylibium, Pelomonas and Rhodoferax, and the fungal genera Cladosporium, Pseudeurotiaceae, Capronia, Xenopolyscytalum and Venturia. The effect of harvesting on hemicellulolytic populations was evaluated based on in situ bacterial and fungal OTUs. Harvesting treatments had significant but modest long-term effects on relative abundances of hemicellulolytic populations, which differed in strength between two ecozones and between soil layers. For soils incubated in microcosms, prior harvesting treatments did not affect the rate of incorporation of hemicellulose carbon into microbial biomass. In six ecozones across North America, distributions of the bacterial hemicellulolytic OTUs were similar, whereas distributions of fungal ones differed. Our work demonstrates that diverse taxa in soil are hemicellulolytic, many of which are differentially affected by the impact of harvesting on environmental conditions. However, the hemicellulolytic capacity of soil communities appears resilient.

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“…In addition, bulk density remained significantly higher in the managed stand than unmanaged stand as a consequence of clearcut harvest operations, piling slash for burn piles, the susceptibility of volcanic ash-cap soil to compaction, and the lack of a freeze/thaw cycle in this area [31]. However, we anticipate the small increase in bulk density with harvesting (8% higher compared to unharvested stands) will have a nominal effect on soil and plant processes [32].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 74%

Impacts of Forest Harvest on Active Carbon and Microbial Properties of a Volcanic Ash Cap Soil in Northern Idaho

Page‐Dumroese¹,

Busse²,

Overby³

et al. 2015

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Soil quality assessments are essential for determining impacts on belowground microbial community structure and function. We evaluated the suitability of active carbon (C), a rapid field test, as an indicator of soil biological quality in five paired forest stands (clear cut harvested 40 years prior and unharvested) growing on volcanic ash-cap soils in northern Idaho. Active C was compared with several traditional measures of soil microbial properties (microbial biomass, respiration, fungal hyphal biomass, bacterial number and biomass and PLFA community structure). Despite the significant differences in forest vegetation between paired stands, no differences in active C and only a few significant differences in microbial properties were detected. Total bacteria (microscope counts) and PLFA signatures (gram positive bacteria, gram negative bacteria, actinomycetes) were significantly higher in the managed stands. Our results indicate that either mineral soil biological properties in managed stands were relatively unaffected at the time of harvest or some biological recovery occurred 40 years later. Additionally, volcanic ash-cap soils in moist ecosystems could be highly resilient to the impacts of harvest operations and therefore few significant biological changes could be detected.

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Effects of organic matter removal, soil compaction and vegetation control on 10th year biomass and foliar nutrition: LTSP continent-wide comparisons

Cited by 111 publications

References 89 publications

Forest harvesting reduces the soil metagenomic potential for biomass decomposition

Forest harvesting reduces the soil metagenomic potential for biomass decomposition

Long-term effects of timber harvesting on hemicellulolytic microbial populations in coniferous forest soils

Impacts of Forest Harvest on Active Carbon and Microbial Properties of a Volcanic Ash Cap Soil in Northern Idaho

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