World patterns and amounts of detrital soil carbon

Meentemeyer, Vernon; Gardner, J. L.; Box, Elgene O.

doi:10.1002/esp.3290100604

Cited by 32 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Zak et al (1993) reported that in the upper Great Lakes region, encompassing an area from northern Minnesota to Michigan's Lower Peninsula, where AET ranges only from 513 to 548 mm, climatic variables are not significantly correlated with microbial activity or N mineralization. However, climatic variables were found to be the most important factor in explaining spatial variations of decomposition rate at the continental scale (Meentemeyer 1984, Meentemeyer et al 1985. The results of our model suggest the hypothesis that the importance of climatic variables (e.g., AET) in determining spatial variations of litter decomposition rate increases as spatial gradient increases.…”

Section: Assumptions and Hypothesissupporting

confidence: 49%

Regional Estimation of Nitrogen Mineralization in Forest Ecosystems Using Geographic Information Systems

Fan¹,

Randolph²,

Ehman³

1998

Ecological Applications

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A knowledge-based geographic information system (GIS) model was developed and used to predict net nitrogen mineralization within forest ecosystems of the Midwestern Great Lakes region, USA (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin). Climate, soil, and forest inventory data were used in conjunction with data relating initial N and lignin concentrations of leaf litter. Net N mineralization (N net ) from leaf litter of forest ecosystems of the entire region was predicted as a function of litter quality (N:C ratio), annual actual evapotranspiration, soil texture, and litter production. Regional variation was evident in the model results: N net decreased from rates exceeding 120 kg·ha Ϫ1 ·yr Ϫ1 in the deciduous forest soils of southern Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio to 20 kg·ha Ϫ1 ·yr Ϫ1 in the coniferous forest soils of northern and eastern Michigan. Wisconsin's forest soils had intermediate N net rates, predominantly 40-90 kg·ha Ϫ1 ·yr Ϫ1 . The model was most sensitive to N concentration of litter, which indicated that litter quality of plant species is the most important factor controlling spatial distribution of N mineralization of ecosystems, even at the regional scale.The GIS model in this research provides a means for scaling between stand and regional scales. The model was a practical approach for estimating net N mineralization in forest ecosystems at the regional scale. Such models will become increasingly important in simulating the impacts of global environmental change on forest ecosystems.

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Section: Assumptions and Hypothesissupporting

confidence: 49%

Regional Estimation of Nitrogen Mineralization in Forest Ecosystems Using Geographic Information Systems

Fan¹,

Randolph²,

Ehman³

1998

Ecological Applications

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“…Actual evapotranspiration (AE) combines the effect of atmospheric demand (through PE) with that of moisture availability from precipitation and soil storage. It has been found to be closely related to the intensity of regional biological activities (Meentemeyer et al, 1985). Deficit (DEF) is defined as the difference between the PE and AE.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstruction of a 1436‐year soil moisture and vegetation water use history based on tree‐ring widths from Qilian junipers in northeastern Qaidam Basin, northwestern China

Yin

Shao

Qin

et al. 2007

Intl Journal of Climatology

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Tree-ring widths have been used widely in studies of environmental changes and reconstructions of past climate. Eleven tree-ring chronologies of approximately 800-1500 years long were developed from Qilian junipers (Sabina przewalskii Kom.) for northeastern Qaidam Basin, along the margin of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Previous studies have revealed that water usage stress is the most limiting factor for tree growth in the study region. To evaluate the impact of the combined effects of temperature and precipitation changes over time, we performed water balance modelling using 1955-2002 meteorological data. We found that the tree-ring widths were strongly correlated with variables representing soil moisture conditions obtained from the water balance model. Specifically we considered actual evapotranspiration (AE) to represent the combined effect of water use demand and moisture availability, deficit as the difference between potential evapotranspiration (PE) and AE to represent the severity of water use stress, and relative soil moisture as the measure of moisture availability. For certain individual monthly and seasonal combinations, the tree-ring chronologies explained up to 80% of the variation in the soil moisture variables in regression analysis, indicating very good potential for reconstruction of regional soil moisture conditions in the past. These soil moisture variables outperformed precipitation and Palmer's drought severity index in most cases. We reconstructed the soil moisture conditions from 566 AD to 2001, which revealed major dry and wet periods and a general trend toward a wetter condition during the most recent 300 years. By comparing with other proxies in the region, we concluded that the moisture conditions reconstructed from tree-ring widths very well reflected the climate variability at the interannual and interdecadal scales.

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“…The "bucket" model by Thornthwaite and Mather (1957), although an entirely empirical approach, is especially useful because it is based on monthly mean temperatures and monthly precipitation sums only, and it appears to provide a reasonable estimate of potential and actual evapotranspiration for temperate latitudes. Correspondingly, it was used in many empirical and modeling studies (e.g., Muller 1982, Meentemeyer et al 1985, Mintz and Serafini 1992 as well as in most forest gap models (e.g., Pastor and Post 1985, Solomon 1986, Kienast 1987. In FORCLIM, this approach is used as well.…”

Section: Parameter Estimationmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Simplified Forest Model to Study Species Composition Along Climate Gradients

Bugmann¹

1996

Ecology

277

276

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Forest models based on the gap dynamics hypothesis (gap models) have gained an important role in forest ecology and have grown rather complex in the last 20 yr. They have been applied extensively to study the impacts of climatic change on ecosystems although they originally were not built for this purpose. The objectives of this study were (1) to develop a new forest gap model, ForClim, that includes only a minimum number of ecological assumptions but robust parameterizations of the effects of climate on plant population dynamics; (2) to test the realism of ForClim as compared to its predecessor model, FORECE; and (3) to examine the behavior of FORECE and ForClim systematically along climate gradients in Europe. ForClim is composed of three modular submodels: ForClim—P for plant population dynamics, ForClim—S for soil carbon/nitrogen turnover, and ForClim—E for providing reliable parameterizations of the abiotic environment. For the core model, ForClim—P, it was found that only four factors are sufficient to model tree growth, another four factors are required to model tree establishment, and only two factors are required to model tree mortality. The behavior of ForClim was tested at a large number of sites in the European Alps. The model yields tree species compositions that conform to field data and are very similar to those of the predecessor model. Based on this evaluation alone, it would not be possible to favor one of the models over the other. The behavior of both models then was examined systematically in a parameter space spanned by the annual mean temperature and the annual precipitation sum. From this exercise it became evident that both the pattern of aboveground biomass and the realized niches of the dominating tree species are simulated realistically by ForClim. Extremely steep gradients are characteristic of FORECE, and many ecotones are simulated to occur in the wrong places in FORECE. Thus, some of the current forest gap models can be simplified without reducing the realism of their behavior, and models other than FORECE should be scrutinized in this respect as well. The present study also suggests that the evaluation of model behavior at scattered sites is insufficient to show their validity for simulating forest dynamics along climate gradients. Further rigorous model comparisons and validation studies are required to increase the reliability of this promising class of models.

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World patterns and amounts of detrital soil carbon

Cited by 32 publications

References 13 publications

Regional Estimation of Nitrogen Mineralization in Forest Ecosystems Using Geographic Information Systems

Regional Estimation of Nitrogen Mineralization in Forest Ecosystems Using Geographic Information Systems

Reconstruction of a 1436‐year soil moisture and vegetation water use history based on tree‐ring widths from Qilian junipers in northeastern Qaidam Basin, northwestern China

A Simplified Forest Model to Study Species Composition Along Climate Gradients

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