Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Forest Sciences Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Forest Sciences

Frayed Connections: How Long-Term Nitrogen Additions Disrupt Plant-Soil Interactions And The Carbon Cycle Of A Temperate Forest, Brooke A. Eastman Jan 2022

Frayed Connections: How Long-Term Nitrogen Additions Disrupt Plant-Soil Interactions And The Carbon Cycle Of A Temperate Forest, Brooke A. Eastman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Forests are expected to mitigate some of the negative effects of climate change by sequestering anthropogenic carbon (C) from the atmosphere, but the degree to which they drawn down C will depend on the availability of key nutrients, such as nitrogen (N). There is a fair amount of uncertainty in the future of the forest C sink, mostly owing to the fate of soil organic matter (SOM) and soil heterotrophic respiration to future conditions. In N limited systems, plants allocate a significant amount of their photosynthate belowground for the acquisition of nutrients, but under conditions of chronic N deposition, plants …


The Impacts Of Maple Syrup Production On The Herbaceous Layer In Appalachian Hardwood Forests, Logan Scott Ferguson Jan 2022

The Impacts Of Maple Syrup Production On The Herbaceous Layer In Appalachian Hardwood Forests, Logan Scott Ferguson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Vegetation data were collected from eight maple syrup farms (sugarbushes) and eight undeveloped maple-dominated sites to examine potential differences in understory plant communities due to disturbance effects. Understory plants were identified to the species level and percent cover of aboveground leaf-area for each species was estimated within 600 total quadrats. Overstory data and environmental data were collected to help determine if they had any effect on herbaceous-layer plant communities. Species richness, Shannon diversity, and Pielou’s evenness were calculated, with the analysis showing no significant differences between the site types. The absolute cover of plant functional groups was also compared between …