Soil respiration may be elevated after a forest disturbance as a result of environmental or physical changes. Further, aspects of disturbance, including degree of disturbance severity or presence of compound disturbance, may affect soil respiration. We investigate the following questions (1) Do wind-disturbed forests have elevated soil respiration compared to undisturbed forests?, and (2) Does a greater disturbance severity (% basal area of trees impacted) lead to increased soil respiration? To answer these questions, we studied two wind disturbed sites in Georgia, USA to examine the patterns in soil respiration over a year. Boggs Creek (BC) experienced a tornado 5 years pre-sampling with some parts of the forest undergoing subsequent salvage logging. Watson Springs (WS) was experimentally disturbed through a combination of tree winching and tree cutting within 1 year of sampling.
Results/Conclusions
We found that soil respiration was elevated in wind disturbed sites at BC when compared to undisturbed forest (p<0.01), but there was no significant difference between disturbed and undisturbed sites at WS (p=0.3). We found similar patterns in soil respiration as a result of the effect of wind disturbance severity, detecting a significant increase in respiration at BC (p=0.3), but no significant difference at WS (p=0.5). These patterns may indicate that changes to soil respiration in southeastern forests occur at a time scale greater than 1 year post-disturbance but are detectable 5+ years post-disturbance. This work is ongoing to investigate the temporal patterns of soil respiration after wind disturbance.