Open Access

Scientific Reports, volume 9, issue 1, publication number 8635

The strength of soil-plant interactions under forest is related to a Critical Soil Depth

P. Goebes ¹

K. Schmidt ¹

Steffen Seitz ¹

Sabine Both ²

Helge Bruelheide ^{3, 4}

Alexandra Erfmeier ^{4, 5}

Thomas Scholten ¹

Peter Kühn ¹

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Institute of Geography, Soil Science and Geomorphology, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany |

Environmental and Rural Science, University of New England, Armidale, Australia |

Institute of Biology, Geobotany and Botanical Garden, Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany |

⁴

German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (IDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany |

⁵

Institute for Ecosystem Research, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany |

Publication type: Journal Article

Publication date: 2019-06-14

Springer Nature

Journal: Scientific Reports

scimago Q1

SJR: 0.900

CiteScore: 7.5

Impact factor: 3.8

ISSN: 20452322

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-45156-5

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Multidisciplinary

Abstract

Soil properties and terrain attributes are of great interest to explain and model plant productivity and community assembly (hereafter P&CA). Many studies only sample surface soils, and may therefore miss important variation of deeper soil levels. We aimed to identify a critical soil depth in which the relationships between soil properties and P&CA were strongest due to an ideal interplay among soil properties and terrain attributes. On 27 plots in a subtropical Chinese forest varying in tree and herb layer species richness and tree productivity, 29 soil properties in six depth columns and four terrain attributes were analyzed. Soil properties varied with soil depth as did their interrelationships. Non-linearity of soil properties led to critical soil depths in which different P&CA characteristics were explained best (using coefficients of determination). The strongest relationship of soil properties and terrain attributes to most of P&CA characteristics (adj. R2 ~ 0.7) was encountered using a soil column of 0–16 cm. Thus, depending on the biological signal one is interested in, soil depth sampling has to be adapted. Considering P&CA in subtropical broad-leaved secondary forests, we recommend sampling one bulk sample of a column from 0 cm down to a critical soil depth of 16 cm.

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Publisher

Springer Nature

Journal

Scientific Reports

scimago Q1

SJR

0.900

CiteScore

7.5

Impact factor

3.8

ISSN

20452322 (Print, Electronic)

The strength of soil-plant interactions under forest is related to a Critical Soil Depth

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