Investigating Surficial Geologic Controls on Soil Properties, Inorganic Nutrient Uptake, and Northern Hardwood Growth in
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Investigating Surficial Geologic Controls on Soil Properties, Inorganic Nutrient Uptake, and Northern Hardwood Growth in Western Massachusetts, USA Rudolph S. Marek IV 1 & Justin B. Richardson 1 Received: 15 August 2019 / Accepted: 6 January 2020 # Sociedad Chilena de la Ciencia del Suelo 2020
Abstract The influence of glacial geologic materials on soil properties, tree nutrient acquisition, and tree growth rates in New England is not well-constrained. Here, our research investigates the effect of two dominant surficial deposits, glacial till and glaciofluvial deposits, on soils and northern hardwood trees in western Massachusetts. We investigated sixteen paired glaciofluvial and glacial till sites located on the perimeters of glacial lake Hitchcock sediments, which drained 12,400 years ago. At each site, a 12.2-mradius circular plot was selected, a soil pit was excavated, and all trees within the plot were sampled for foliage and cored with an increment borer. Our analyses found glaciofluvial soils to have significantly higher pH, clay fraction, and water field capacity than glacial till soils. Glaciofluvial soils also had less rock fragments and lower sand content than glacial till soils. We observed significantly higher pseudo-total K, Ca, Mg, and Mn concentrations in glacial till soils, but found similar foliar concentrations for five of the six tree species. Tree cores showed Black Birch, Red Maple, and Red Oak grew 1.3 to 2.1 times faster on glaciofluvial soils. Our study found that glaciofluvial soils, which exhibit greater water retention, less rocks, more fine particles, and higher soil pH than glacial till soils, promote faster growth of Black Birch, Red Maple, and Red Oak. However, the growth of American Beech, White Oak, and Eastern Hemlock was not impacted by surficial deposits, implying adaptation to nutrient limitations, coarser rocky soils, and potential water stress. Thus, the growth of some common tree species is affected by geologic materials, but others are not affected. Keywords Glacial till . Glaciofluvial . Soil parent material . Forest nutrients
1 Introduction In the northeastern USA, forests are critical resources for harvesting timber, building materials, and biomass as biofuel for domestic heating. While the demand for timber and biofuel is increasing, forest lands dedicated to timber harvesting management plans are simultaneously decreasing (Robertson et al. 2011; Joshi and Mehmood, 2011). Thus, it is increasingly important for public and private forest and land managers to consider the longevity of nutrients and soil properties for sustainability of production rates of managed forested lands (Deal et al. 2012; Legout et al, 2014; Paré and Thiffault, 2016). Soil fertility is central to the sustainability of forestry, but few * Justin B. Richardson [email protected] 1
Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts Amherst, 233 Morrill Science Center, Amherst, MA 01003, USA
studies have explored the link between soil properties to their geologic parent mate
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