Precipitation, Its Chemical Composition and Effect on Soil Water in a Beech and a Spruce Forest in South Sweden

Oikos ◽  
1970 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bengt Nihlgård ◽  
Bengt Nihlgard
Keyword(s):  
Chemical Composition ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Spruce Forest ◽  
South Sweden

Colloidal matter in water extracts from forest soils

2007 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 424 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Dreves ◽  
Nils Andersen ◽  
Pieter M. Grootes ◽  
Marie-Josée Nadeau ◽  
Carl-Dieter Garbe-Schönberg
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Chemical Composition ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Relative Proportion ◽  
Transport Processes ◽  
Total Charge ◽  
Dual Nature ◽  
Organic C ◽  
Water Extracts ◽  
Colloidal Fraction

Environmental context. Little is known about the proportion of tiny dispersed particles and true solutions in soil water although the distinction has a major influence on transport processes of organic matter, fertiliser and pollutants in soils and thus, e.g., on carbon storage, and its role in global warming. Our study has found a noticeable amount of tiny particles (range 17 nm to 1.0 μm) in filtered soil water, that have a different chemical composition and a lower bioavailability of their organic components in comparison to the soluble part. This significant occurrence and the ecological relevance of colloids for the transport and storage of soil constituents highlights the need to partition soil water content into ‘particulate’ and ‘dissolved’ since the access to soil pores determines particle transport. Abstract. Water-extracted organic matter (WEOM) is widely used as a surrogate for natural organic matter in soil water in the investigation of soil carbon dynamics. Information about the dissolved or colloidal nature of the organic matter is scarce since dissolved organic matter (DOM) is simply operationally defined by filtration: ‘DOM is what passes through the filter’. Water extracts of two topsoil horizons from both a deciduous (Steinkreuz) and a coniferous (Rotthalmünster) forest, located in Bavaria (Germany), were filtered through a 1-μm quartz filter and analysed regarding the amount of colloids in the range ~17 nm to 1.0 μm, the chemical composition and the radiocarbon concentration of both the colloidal and the dissolved fraction separated by high-speed centrifugation. Up to 13.9 wt-% of the total charge of the water extracts belongs to the colloidal fraction. The colloidal fraction has a higher relative proportion of metals and older organic C than the dissolved fraction. This demonstrates the dual nature of WEOM and the need for a more careful definition of DOM.

Response of soil water chemistry and fine-roots to clean rain in a spruce forest ecosystem at Solling, FRG

1995 ◽  
Vol 85 (3) ◽  
pp. 1605-1611 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Bredemeier ◽  
A. Dohrenbusch ◽  
D. Murach
Keyword(s):  
Water Chemistry ◽  
Soil Water ◽  
Forest Ecosystem ◽  
Fine Roots ◽  
Spruce Forest ◽  
Soil Water Chemistry

Spruce and surface water acidification: an extended summary

1990 ◽  
Vol 327 (1240) ◽  
pp. 371-372 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Surface Water ◽  
Lake Water ◽  
Agricultural Science ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Spruce Forest ◽  
Water Acidification ◽  
Surface Water Acidification ◽  
Forest Survey ◽  
Open Land ◽  
South Sweden

It has been proposed that vegetation and soil changes resulting from changes in land use cause surface-water acidification. The expansion of spruce forest, from natural colonization and from afforestation, has been one of the major changes that has taken place in the vegetation of South Sweden during this century. Spruce has been favoured at the expense of broad-leafed trees by forest management and has been planted on open land, abandoned farm land and in forests. Since the 1920s, the area covered by spruce forest has increased by 2.3 million haf in Gotaland and Svealand, and the frequency of spruce trees in the forests has increased from 11.5 to 33.5% (data from Department of Forest Survey, Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Umea). Gotaland and Svealand comprise the southernmost third of Sweden, the area that suffers most from lake acidification. Spruce colonization alters soil conditions. In several investigations, in which conditions in spruce and birch stands have been compared, significantly lower pH values have been recorded in spruce forest soils. It has been suggested that spruce expansion also leads to lake-water acidification, but this has not been confirmed. Unfortunately, it is difficult to design an investigation aimed at studying the acidification effects of spruce forest under prevailing levels of atmospheric pollution because there are problems in distinguishing between true vegetation-soil effects, effects of air pollution, and combined effects. To assess whether spruce forest per se causes lake-water acidification, we have studied the effects of the natural immigration of spruce that reached northern Sweden from the northeast about 3000 years ago, before there was any acid precipitation from fossil-fuel combustion. Palaeoecological studies indicate that spruce colonized land that was occupied by birch, alder and pine.

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