Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide exchanges in an age-sequence of temperate pine forests.

Peichle, Mathias and Arian, Altaf and Ullah, Sami and Moore, Tim (2010) Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide exchanges in an age-sequence of temperate pine forests. Global Change Biology, 16 (8). pp. 2198-2212. ISSN 1354-1013

Abstract

We investigated soil carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) exchanges in an age-sequence (4, 17, 32, 67 years old) of eastern white pine (Pinus strobus L.) forests in southern Ontario, Canada, for the period of mid-April to mid-December in 2006 and 2007. For both CH4 and N2O, we observed uptake and emission ranging from 160 to 245 lgCH4m2 h1 and 52 to 21 lgN2Om2 h1, respectively (negative values indicate uptake). Mean fluxes from mid-April to mid-December across the 4, 17, 32, 67 years old stands were similar for CO2 fluxes (259, 246, 220, and 250mg CO2m2 h1, respectively), without pattern for N2O fluxes (3.7, 1.5, 2.2, and 7.6 lgN2Om2 h1, respectively), whereas the uptake rates of CH4 increased with stand age (6.4, 7.9, 10.8, and 23.3 lgCH4m2 h1, respectively). For the same period, the combined contribution of CH4 and N2O exchanges to the global warming potential (GWP) calculated from net ecosystem exchange of CO2 and aggregated soil exchanges of CH4 and N2O was on average 4%, o1%, o1%, and 2% for the 4, 17, 32, 67 years old stand, respectively. Soil CO2 fluxes correlated positively with soil temperature but had no relationship with soil moisture. We found no control of soil temperature or soil moisture on CH4 and N2O fluxes, but CH4 emission was observed following summer rainfall events. LFH layer removal reduced CO2 emissions by 43%, increased CH4 uptake during dry and warm soil conditions by more than twofold, but did not affect N2O flux. We suggest that significant alternating sink and source potentials for both CH4 and N2O may occur in N- and soil water-limited forest ecosystems, which constitute a large portion of forest cover in temperate areas.