Temporal and Spatial Dynamics of Soil Carbon Cycling and Its Response to Environmental Change in a Northern Hardwood Forest.

ABSTRACT: The timescales over which soil carbon responds to global change are a major uncertainty in the terrestrial carbon cycle. Radiocarbon measurements on archived soil samples are an important tool for addressing this uncertainty. We present time series (1969-2023) of radiocarbon measurements for litter (Oi/Oe and Oa/A) and mineral (0-10 cm) soils from the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, a predominantly hardwood forest in the northeastern USA. To estimate soil carbon cycling rates, we built different autonomous linear compartmental models. We found that soil litter carbon cycles on decadal timescales (Oi/Oe: ~7 years), whereas carbon at the organic-mineral interface (Oa/A), and mineral soil (0-10 cm) carbon cycles on centennial timescales (~104 and 302 years, respectively). At the watershed-

SUBMITTER: von Fromm SF 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12082271 | biostudies-literature | 2025 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature