Published in Scientific Papers. Series E. Land Reclamation, Earth Observation & Surveying, Environmental Engineering, Vol. XI
Written by Cosmin BRAGA, Lucian DINCA, Gheorghe SPARCHEZ, Vlad CRISAN
The heterogeneity of soil temperature (Tsoil) and soil moisture (Usoil) is recognized as bearing an influence on plant communities, due to the variability of vegetation-specific resource requirements. We tested the temporal differences of heterogeneity of the soil microclimate in an even aged beech forest with four different stand age (10, 30, 80, 120 years) located in the southern part of Romania. The bimonthly measurements of Tsoil and Usoil, made over almost a year (April-December) aimed to investigate the interaction between the age of the trees and these climatic variables in the soil. Both climatic parameters were calculated for each experimental plot for each season and for the entire measurement period. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test the differences between the plots with trees of different ages for the temporal variability of the soil microclimate. The temporal patterns of soil microclimate differ significantly between tree ages, being more sensitive to Usoil compared to Tsoil. The analysis of our data showed a decrease in Tsoil with the age of the tree in the spring and similar trends in the rest of the measurement periods. On the other hand, the Usoil model showed less seasonality compared to the Tsoil, probably being more receptive to the characteristics of local conditions, such as the slope of the land, the thickness of the litter layer, the porosity of the soil or the degree of closure of the forest canopy. These results can conclude that, the ability of forest at small stand ages will increase seasonal the soil microclimatic parameters (Tsoil and Usoil) at highest levels.
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