Abstract
Nutrient retranslocation in trees is important in nutrient budgets and energy flows in forest ecosystems. We investigated nutrient retranslocation in the fine roots of a Manchurian Ash (Fraxinus mandshurica) and a Larch (Larix olgensis) plantation in northeastern China. Nutrient retranslocation in the fine roots was investigated using three methods, specifically, nutrient concentration, the ratio of Ca to other elements (Ca/other elements ratio) and nutrient content. The method based on nutrient content proved most suitable when investigating nutrient retranslocation from fine roots of the two species. The nutrient-content-based method showed that there were retranslocations of N, P, K and Mg from the fine roots of Manchurian Ash, with retranslocation efficiencies of 13, 25, 65, and 38 %, respectively, whereas there were no Ca retranslocations. There were retranslocations of N, P, K, Ca and Mg from the fine roots of Larch, with retranslocation efficiencies of 31, 40, 52, 23 and 25 %, respectively.
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Acknowledgments
We would like to thank Zhen-dong Li in Jianlagou Forest Station of Northeast Forestry University for his help in the study site selection and Hai-xia Zhou and Dong Li in Northeast Forestry University for their help in fine root sample collection. We also greatly thank the two anonymous reviewers and the editors for their constructive comments that improved the manuscript greatly.
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Project funding: This research was supported by the National Key Technology Research and Development Program (2012BAD21B0202-02), the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province of China (C201340) and the assisted project by Heilong Jiang Postdoctoral Funds for Scientific Research Initiation (LBH-Q13006).
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Corresponding editor: Zhu Hong
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Huang, S., Sun, X., Zhang, Y. et al. Nutrient retranslocation from the fine roots of Fraxinus mandshurica and Larix olgensis in northeastern China. J. For. Res. 27, 1305–1312 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-016-0258-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-016-0258-6