Hydrologic Controls On Carbon Cycling In Alaskan Coastal Temperate Rainforest Soils

Abstract

The northern perhumid North American Pacific coastal temperate rainforest (NCTR) extends along the coastal margin of British Columbia and southeast Alaska and has some of the densest carbon stocks in the world. Northern temperate ecosystems such as the NCTR play an important role in the global balance of carbon flows between atmospheric and terrestrial pools. However, there is little information on key components of the forest carbon budget in this region. Specifically, the large pool of soluble carbon that is transferred from soils via streamwater as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) certainly plays a role in the total carbon balance in wet forests such as the NCTR. In order to address this information gap, I applied the concept of hydropedology to define functional landscape units based on soil type to quantify soil carbon fluxes and apply these estimates to a conceptual model for determining the carbon balance in three NCTR watersheds. The strong hydrologic gradient among ecosystems served as a template for constructing a conceptual design and approach for constraining carbon budget estimates in the watersheds. Replicated hydropedologic units were identified in three classes: sloping bogs, forested wetlands, and uplands. Estimates of annual soil respiration and DOC fluxes from the hydropedologic types were obtained through seasonal measurements combined with temperature-dependent models. Soil respiration fluxes varied significantly across the hydrologic gradient where soil respiration was 78, 178, and 235 g CO2 m -2 y-1 in sloping bogs, forested wetlands and uplands respectively. Average DOC flux was 7.7, 30.3, to 33.0 g C m-2 y-1 in sloping bog, forested wetland, and upland sites respectively. Estimates of carbon efflux from the terrestrial ecosystem was combined with values of net primary productivity from remote sensing to determine net ecosystem production (NEP). The average NEP estimated in three NCTR watersheds was 2.0 +/- 0.8 Mg C ha-1. Carbon loss as DOC was 10--30% of the total carbon flux from the watersheds confirming the importance of this vector of carbon loss in the NCTR. The watershed estimates indicate that forests of the NCTR serve as a carbon sinks consistent with the average worldwide rate of carbon sequestration in terrestrial ecosystems.