A distinct seasonal pattern of the ratio of soil respiration to total ecosystem respiration in a spruce-dominated forest

Author

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• Davidson, E.A.
• Richardson, A.D.
• Savage, K.E.
• Hollinger, D.Y.

Year Published

2006

Source

Global Change Biology. 12: 230-239.

Abstract

Annual budgets and fitted temperature response curves for soil respiration and ecosystem respiration provide useful information for partitioning annual carbon budgets of ecosystems, but they may not adequately reveal seasonal variation in the ratios of these two fluxes. Soil respiration (R_s) typically contributes 30-80% of annual total ecosystem respiration (R_eco) in forests, but the temporal variation of these ratios across seasons has not been investigated. The objective of this study was to investigate seasonal variation in the R_s/R_eco ratio in a mature forest dominated by conifers at Howland, ME, USA.We used chamber measurements of R_s and tower-based eddy covariance measurements of R_eco. The R_s/R_eco ratio reached a minimum of about 0.45 in the early spring, gradually increased through the late spring and early summer, leveled off at about 0.65 for the summer, and then increased again to about 0.8 in the autumn.

Keywords

• ameriflux
• carbon cycle
• CO2
• eddy covarience
• Howland
• phenology
• temperature response

Citation

Davidson, E.A.; Richardson, A.D.; Savage, K.E.; Hollinger, D.Y. 2006. A distinct seasonal pattern of the ratio of soil respiration to total ecosystem respiration in a spruce-dominated forest. Global Change Biology. 12: 230-239.

Last updated on: August 4, 2008

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