earticle

영어

We investigated Soil respiration in Bluepine forest of western Bhutan, in relation to soil temperature, moisture content and soil pH and it was aimed at establishing variability in space and time. The Bluepine forest thrives in the typical shallow dry valleys in the inter-montane Bhutan Himalaya, which is formed by ascending wind from the valley bottom, which carries moisture from the river away to the mountain ridges. Stratified random sampling was applied and the study site was classified into top, mid, low slope and further randomized sample of n=20 from 30 m×30 m from each altitude. The overall soil respiration mean for the forest was found 2248.17 CO2 g yr-1 and it is ∼613.58 C g yr-1. The RS from three sites showed a marginal variation amongst sites, lower slope (2,309 m) was 4.64  mol m-2 s-1, mid slope (2,631 m) was 6.78  mol m-2 s-1 and top slope (3,027 m) was 6.33  mol m-2 s-1 and mean of 5.92  mol m-2 s-1, SE=0.25 for the forest. Temporal distribution and variations were observed more pronounced than in the space variation. Soil respiration was found highest during March and lowest in September. Soil temperature had almost inverse trend against soil respiration and dropped a low in February and peak in July. The moisture in the soil changed across months with precipitation and pH remained almost consistent across the period. The soil respiration and soil temperature had significant relationship R2=-0.61, p=0.027 and other variables were found insignificant. Similar relationship are reported for dry season in a tropical forest soil respiration. Soil temperature was found to have most pronounced effect on the soil respiration of the forest under study.