Document: RUT-3-63-6

Distinguishing the effects of environmental stress and forest succession on changes in the forest floor.

YANAI, R.D.* ¹ and M.A.ARTHUR ²

SUNY-ESF, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA ¹
University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, USA ²

Abstract:
When interpreting change over time in forest ecosystems, distinguishing the effects of forest succession from the effects of environmental stress can be difficult. The result may be a simplistic interpretation, citing a specific successional or environmental cause of forest change when both types may be occurring. We present two case studies of changes in the forest floor in northern hardwoods. First, the belief that 50% of soil organic matter is lost in the first 20 years after logging was based on a study comparing northern hardwood stands of different ages. We resampled a series of 13 such stands after an interval of 15 years, and found that the young stands were not, in fact, losing organic matter as rapidly as predicted from the original chronosequence study. The pattern of higher organic matter content in the forest floors of older stands compared to young stands could be equally well explained by changes in logging practices over the last century as by the aging of the stand. The observed pattern of forest floor organic matter as a function of stand age was previously interpreted as a successional pattern, ignoring changes in treatment history. In the second case study, observed losses of base cations from the forest floor were attributed to cation depletion caused by acid rain and declining calcium deposition. We found that young stands were gaining base cations in the forest floor; losses of base cations were restricted to older stands. Differences in litter chemistry in stands of different ages may explain some of the pattern in cation gains and losses. In this case, the contribution of successional processes to cation loss had been overlooked in favor of environmental stress as the dominant mechanism behind the observed changes. Studies of environmental stress use repeated measures over time, but often don't consider stand age as a factor. Studies of successional change often assume that environmental factors remain constant. We were able to consider both forest succession and external factors because we repeatedly sampled stands of different ages.

Keywords: : chronosequence, northern hardwood forest, soil organic matter, cation depletion, calcium, forest disturbance, litterfall

This abstract is being presented at: 9:00 AM in session:
Oral Session #22: Multiple Disturbance Effects, Including Fire.