Fine root mass temporal prediction method: contributions from Atlantic Forest

Fine roots, as foraging structures, can form complex and variable networks in soil, requiring significant time and effort to sample them. The objective of this study was to investigate whether, by selecting the best fit model to accumulated mass curves, it was possible to decrease the fine root sampling time interval in the temporal prediction method, without affecting the estimation accuracy. To this, roots with diameter ≤ 2 mm were considered as fine roots and were manually removed from each soil core over 60-time intervals of 2 minutes. At the end of each time interval roots collected in the field were stored in paper bags (properly identified) and frozen. Later, in the laboratory, the sampled roots were washed and dried at 60 ° C until their mass became constant and finally weighed. In the column "time" is this the duration of the collection (cumulative series of 2 minutes), while in the other columns, is the fine root mass accumulated over time for each soil core.

细根（fine roots）作为植物的觅食结构，可在土壤中形成复杂且可变的网络，其采样工作耗时耗力。本研究旨在探究：通过为累积质量曲线选择最优拟合模型，能否在不影响估算精度的前提下，缩短时间预测方法中的细根采样时间间隔。为此，本研究将直径≤2毫米的根系定义为细根，并在60个时长为2分钟的采样间隔内，从每个土芯（soil core）中手动分离细根。每个采样间隔结束后，野外采集的根系将被装入标注清晰的纸袋中并冷冻保存。后续在实验室中，研究人员对采集的根系进行清洗，随后置于60℃环境下烘干至质量恒定，最终称量其干重。数据集中"time"列记录的为采样时长（以2分钟为步长的累积序列），其余各列则分别对应每个土芯随时间累积的细根干质量。