Fine root biomass differs significantly across different forest types and soil depth in Central Himalaya, India (original) (raw)
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Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
The belowground systems of trees have a major role in forest functioning through absorption of water and nutrient cycling. This study deals with the fine root dynamics including fine root biomass, necromass, production, turnover, and nutrient return in transitional Sal (Shorea robusta Gaertn. f.) dominated sub-tropical forest ecosystems of Central Himalaya, India. Four sites namely, Site-1 (Kaladhungi), Site-2 (Fatehpur), Site-3 (Ranibagh), Site-4 (Amritpur) were selected in Sal forest within an elevational range between 405 and 580 m above sea level. The dominant and associated co-dominant species were selected from each site for the estimation of fine root dynamics by using sequential core and ingrowth core methods. The results revealed that the fine root biomass, necromass, and production were significantly (p < 0.05) affected by location, seasons, and soil properties. The fine root biomass and production decreased with increasing soil depth and also influenced by stand charac...
Tropical Ecology
Biomass, production and turnover of fine roots were estimated in undisturbed and disturbed stands of a tropical wet evergreen forest and were shown to vary significantly (P<0.001) between the stands. In the highly disturbed stand, more than 90% of the fine root biomass was recorded in the surface soil layer, whereas in the moderately and undisturbed stands the proportion averaged 67%. Higher concentrations of fine roots in the surface soil layer were related to higher nutrient concentrations and moisture retention in the undisturbed stand. Root turnover also decreased with increasing soil depth, root size and intensity of stand disturbance. In the undisturbed, moderately disturbed and highly disturbed stands the annual fine-root turnover was 3181, 1701 and 822 kg ha-1 yr-1 respectively. The study revealed that growth and accumulation of fine roots varied with species composition, tree density and basal area. The contribution of fine roots in the build-up of soil organic matter an...
Plant Ecology, 1996
Seasonal variation and depthwise distribution of dry matter in roots of different diameter classes and their annual production were studied using sequential core sampling. The investigations were carried out in three stands of a subtropical humid forest of north-east India representing different stages of regrowth after tree cutting. The mean annual standing crop of fine (<2 mm in diameter) and coarse (2–15 mm diameter) roots increased gradually from 5.4 Mg ha-1 and 0.7 Mg ha-1 in 7-yr old regrowth to 9.4 Mg ha-1 and 2.8 Mg ha-1 in 16-yr old regrowth, respectively. The contribution of fine roots to the total root mass declined from 88% in 7-yr old regrowth to 77% in both 13 and 16-yr old regrowths, while that of coarse roots increased from 12 to 23%. A major portion of fine roots (59–62%) was present in 0–10 cm soil layer, but the coarse roots were concentrated in 10–20 cm soil depth (38–48%). In all the three stands, biomass of both fine and coarse roots followed a unimodal growth curve by showing a gradual increase from spring/pre-rainy season to autumn/post-rainy season. Biomass to necromass ratio increased from 2.5 in the 7-yr old to 3.2 in the 16-yr old stand. The annual fine root production increased from 5.9 Mg ha-1 to 7.7 Mg ha-1 and total root production from 7.6 Mg ha-1 to 14.7 Mg ha-1 from 7-yr to 16-yr old regrowth.