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Impacts of Fine Root Turnover on Forest NPP and Soil C Sequestration Potential
Roser Matamala,1*Miquel A. Gonzàlez-Meler,2Julie D. Jastrow,1Richard J. Norby,3William H. Schlesinger4
Estimates of forest net primary production (NPP) demand accurateestimates of root production and turnover. We assessed rootturnover with the use of an isotope tracer in two forest free-aircarbon dioxide enrichment experiments. Growth at elevated carbondioxide did not accelerate root turnover in either the pineor the hardwood forest. Turnover of fine root carbon variedfrom 1.2 to 9 years, depending on root diameter and dominanttree species. These long turnover times suggest that root productionand turnover in forests have been overestimated and that sequestrationof anthropogenic atmospheric carbon in forest soils may be lowerthan currently estimated.
1 Environmental Research Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA. 2 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), Chicago, IL60607, USA. 3 Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA. 4 Nicholas School of Environment and Earth Sciences, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: matamala{at}anl.gov
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TECHNICAL COMMENTS
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[DOI: 10.1126/science.1099340] |Full Text »|PDF »
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