Name
Geospatial Variability of Soil Biogeophysical Properties in a Temperate Forested Canadian Shield Landscape: Implications for Carbon Dioxide and Methane Fluxes
Description
This investigation was undertaken to quantify the degree of geospatial variability in soil biogeophysical properties and carbon greenhouse gas fluxes in a small (ca. 1.6 ha) forested catchment near Deep River, Ontario. The ferro-humic podzol soils at the study site occur on glaciofluvial sands and washed till; significant spatial heterogeneity was evident from sand-till t-tests (p ≤ 0.05) in grain-size distributions, coefficients of uniformity, bulk density, porosity, and soil organic matter content. Soil moisture exhibited a positive linear correlation to organic content (R = 0.91) and displayed a negative exponential response with respect to unsaturated vadose zone thickness (R = 0.61). Negative (sink) methane flux values were similar on sand (𝑥̄ = -0.55 ± 0.38) and till (𝑥̄ = -0.60 ± 0.19 nmol/m^(2)/s), whereas positive (source) carbon dioxide fluxes were significantly different on sand (𝑥̄ = 0.75 ± 0.38) and till (𝑥̄ = 1.21 ± 0.46 umol/m^(2)/s). Methane and carbon dioxide fluxes were sensitive to soil water saturation ratio, with higher flux values occurring in the mid- to upper range (0.3 to 0.7) of saturation values. A high degree of directional anisotropy was also detected in variograms with maximum variance across short distances (i.e., variogram slopes with ranges < 50 m) in the soil biogeophysical properties and carbon greenhouse gas fluxes trending north-west. The manifestation of short-range geospatial heterogeneity and anisotropy in the exchange of carbon dioxide and methane between soils and the atmosphere are important realizations to account for in scaling up to regional and global scale models.