Baltimore Ecosystem Study: Physical, chemical and biological properties of forest and home lawn soils

Abstract:

One-meter soil cores were taken to evaluate soil texture, bulk
density, carbon and nitrogen pools, microbial biomass carbon and
nitrogen content, microbial respiration, potential net nitrogen
mineralization, potential net nitrification and inorganic nitrogen
pools in 32 residential home lawns that differed by previous land
use and age, but had similar soil types. These were compared to
soils from 8 forested reference sites.

Purpose:

Soil cores were obtained from residential and forest sites in the
Baltimore, MD USA metropolitan area. The residential sites were
mostly within the Gwynns Falls Watershed (-76.012008W, -77.314183E,
39.724847N, 38.708367S and approximately 17 km2) Lawns on
residential sites were dominated by a variety of cool season
turfgrasses. Forest soil cores were taken from permanent forest
plots of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) LTER (Groffman et al.
2006). These remnant forests are over 100 years old with soils that
were comparable in type and texture to those underlying the
residential study sites. Soils from all sites were from the Manor
series (coarse-loamy, micaceous, mesic Typic Dystrudepts), which are
well-drained upland soils with loamy textures and bedrock at 5 to 10
feet below the soil surface.

To aid the site selection process we used neighborhoods in the
Baltimore City metropolitan area that have been mapped using
HERCULES, a high resolution land cover classification system
designed to assist in the study of human-ecological systems
(Cadenasso et al. 2007). Using HERCULES and additional data sources,
we identified residential sites that were similar except for single
factors that we hypothesized to be important predictors of ecosystem
dynamics. These factors included land use history (agriculture and
forest, n = 10 and n = 22), housing density (low and medium/high, n
= 9 and n = 23), and housing age (4 to 58 yrs old, n = 32). Housing
age was acquired from the Maryland Property View database. Prior
land use was determined based on land use change maps developed by
integrating aerial photos from 1938, 1957, 1971, and 1999 into a
geographic information system. Once a list of residential parcels
meeting the predefined criteria were identified, we sent mailings to
property owners chosen at random from each of the factor groups with
the goal of recruiting 40 property owners for a 3 year study (of
which this work is a part). We had recruited 32 property owners at
the time that soil cores were obtained.

Data have been published in Raciti et al. (2011a, 2011b)

References

Cadenasso, M. L., S. T. A. Pickett, and K. Schwarz. 2007. Spatial
heterogeneity in urban ecosystems: reconceptualizing land cover and
a framework for classification. Frontiers in Ecology and the
Environment 5:80-88.
https://doi.org/10.1890/1540-9295(2007)5[80:SHIUER]2.0.CO;2

Groffman, P. M., R. V. Pouyat, M. L. Cadenasso, W. C. Zipperer, K.
Szlavecz, I. D. Yesilonis, L. E. Band, and G. S. Brush. 2006. Land
use context and natural soil controls on plant community composition
and soil nitrogen and carbon dynamics in urban and rural forests.
Forest Ecology and Management 236:177-192.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2006.09.002

Raciti, S. M., Groffman, P. M., Jenkins, J. C., Pouyat, R. V.,
Fahey, T. J., Pickett, S. T. A., & Cadenasso, M. L. (2011a).
Nitrate production and availability in residential soils. Ecological
Applications, 21(7), 2357–2366. https://doi.org/10.1890/10-2009.1

Raciti, S.M., Groffman, P.M., Jenkins, J.C. et al. (2011b).
Accumulation of Carbon and Nitrogen in Residential Soils with
Different Land-Use Histories. Ecosystems 14, 287–297.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-010-9409-3