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Nutrient fluxes in pure and mixed stands of spruce (Picea abies) and beech (Fagus sylvatica)

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Abstract

Studies on the combined effects of beech-spruce mixtures are very rare. Hence, forest nutrition (soil, foliage) and nutrient fluxes via litterfall, throughfall (+ stemflow) and soil solution were measured in adjacent stands of pure spruce, mixed spruce-beech and pure beech on a nutrient rich site at Kreisbach, as well as in adjacent spruce and mixed stands on a nutrient poor site at Frauschereck to evaluate the impact of tree species composition (spruce versus beech) on these parameters. The highest recorded throughfall (+ stemflow) fluxes were 22.4 kg N ha−1 and 9.6 kg S ha−1 yr−1 and increased from beech over the mixed to the spruce stand at Kreisbach, but were similar for both stands at Frauschereck. At Frauschereck, atmospheric inputs were more or less reflected in element outputs, slightly modified by tree species composition. At Kreisbach, there was hardly any linkage between nutrient inputs and outputs. Our overall conclusion is that tree species composition affects forest nutrition, atmospheric input and consequently soil solution chemistry and input–output budgets of nutrients. However, these effects are site specific and dependent on the studied chemical element and process.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF, project numbers P15496 and P18208; both projects granted to T.W. Berger). We thank Anita Gruber, Gerlinde Mistlberger, Karin Wriessnig and Monika Sieghardt for performing the chemical analyses at the laboratory of the Institute of Forest Ecology. We thank Herbert Hager for providing us the equipment for two automatic recording weather stations and for recording stemflow, purchased out of his project funds, and Helmut Schume for teaching us how to use it. We thank Helmut Schume, Georg Jost and Herbet Hager for using their parameter selection for the pure spruce and mixed stand at Kreisbach to run the hydrologic model, already calibrated during the summer 2001. Torsten W. Berger thanks his “academic father” Gene E. Likens for his motivating feedback on the manuscript. Finally, we thank Elisabeth A. Stockdale and two anonymous reviewers for their critical comments for the improvement of this paper.

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  1. Department of Forest- and Soil Sciences, Institute of Forest Ecology, Univ. f. Bodenkultur, Peter Jordan-Strasse 82, 1190, Vienna, Austria

    Torsten W. Berger, Hubert Untersteiner, Martin Toplitzer & Christian Neubauer

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Correspondence to Torsten W. Berger.

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Responsible Editor: Elizabeth (Liz) A. Stockdale.

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Berger, T.W., Untersteiner, H., Toplitzer, M. et al. Nutrient fluxes in pure and mixed stands of spruce (Picea abies) and beech (Fagus sylvatica) . Plant Soil 322, 317–342 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-009-9918-z

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