Structure and function of northern coniferous forests: an ecosystem study

AN ECOSYSTEM

STUDY

OF NORTHERN

CONIFEROUS

FORESTS

Structure and Function of Northern Coniferous Forests: an Ecosystem Study. T. Persson (Editor), Ecological Bulletins No. 32. Swedish Natural Science Research Council, Stockholm, Sweden, 1980. pp. 609, Sw.Kr. 290 (including air mail postage), ISSN 0346-6868, ISBN 91-546-0288-2. Long-term studies of forest ecosystems, integrating various disciplines of ecology in the broader sense on selected study sites, culminated during the period of the International Biological Programme (IBP), 1964-1974, and syntheses of these studies were published from many countries. However, studies of this kind declined in most cases after the end of IBP, due mainly to lack of funds, leaving unsolved many of the questions posed by the studies. The Swedish Coniferous Forest Project (SWECON) which was started in July 1972 and terminated in June 1981, was one of the few cases that continued until recently. The first aim of the project was to study the dynamics of plant biomass and to follow important ecosystem processes connected with energy flow, turnover of water, organic material and mineral nutrients at the main sites of the project, and to make mathematical simulation models of these processes. The second aim of the project was to test and transfer the basic models from the main localities to other representative coniferous forest environments, and the third aim was to study how the dynamics of plant biomass and linked ecosystem processes are influenced directly and indirectly by certain human activities. The studies were conducted on an age series of Scats pine (Pinus siluestris) stands of dry dwarf-shrub type on sandy soil, and old, mixed coniferous forest stands of mesic dwarf-shrub type on glacial till, both in central Sweden. This book is the first comprehensive volume of the results of the studies within the project and covers chiefly the work in connection with the first aim. It consists of 37 papers grouped into three parts, a Subject index, and Lists of Internal (98) and Technical (26) Papers from the project already published. The first part, Introduction (pp. ll-71,), consists of three papers presenting the outline of the project, explanation of the study sites, and the methods of data handling and simulation techniques. The second part, Forest Ecosystems (pp. 73-459), is divided further into three subdivisions. The first subdivision, abiotic processes (one paper) deals with micrometeorology and hydrology. The second subdivision, plant and vegetation processes, contains 16 papers on structural properties and dynamics of Scats pine stands including field and bottom layers, photosynthesis, water relations and mineral nutrient relations of Scats pine trees and seedlings, root dynamics, consumption of needles and roots by organisms, annual carbon budget and total biomass production. The third subdivision, soil processes (nine papers), deals with imput and output of nutrients, and subjects related to decomposition of litter and mineralization of nitrogen. The third part, Theoretical Approach to Forest Functioning (pp. 463-596, eight papers), concerns modeling and

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simulation in micrometeorology and hydrology, gas exchange, tree growth, influence of grazing insects, soil and plant nutritional processes and nitrogen mineralization. Though the studies presented in this book are solely on a particular type of forest ecosystem, this comprehensive report includes many ideas and suggestions also useful in research on and management of other types of forests. TAISITIROOSAT00 Japan Wildlife Research Center Hongo 3-39-l 2 Tokyo 113 Japan

SOIL RESOURCE The Soil Resource. Hans Jenny. Ecological Studies 37. Springer Verlag, New York, 1980. 377 pp., DM57.00/approximately US$33.70, ISBN 3-54090543-x. It was a pleasure and privilege to review this book, which crystallises a lifetime’s work by that doyen of soil science, Hans Jenny. His perception of soil as a functional system has shaped our thinking on soil processes and their interaction since the publication of his Factors of Soil Formation in 1941. The source material for this latest book comes from Professor Jenny’s own experience plus an extensive published literature on ecology and soils spanning the period 1860-1980; most reference material dates from the mid 1950’s to mid 1970’s.As such, the book therefore provides an extremely valuable bibliography for the subject matter covered. This work is in two parts, which effectively makes it two books. A short introductory chapter on ecosystems and soils (including a very brief treatment of soil taxonomy) is followed by a series of chapters on processes of soil genesis (Part A). Chapters cover, in sequence, water regimes, behaviour of ions, clays, biomass and humus, colloids and structure, and pedogenesis. This approach to this discussion of soil processes and pedogenesis is essentially analytical, in contrast to the phenomenological approach adopted in Part B, which covers soil and ecosystem sequences. This latter half of the book leans heavily on specific examples taken from the soil/ecological literature, and case studies by the author, to illustrate and emphasise the various components of Jenny’s “clorpt” model, by which soil properties can be viewed through the integration of the “state factors” - climate (cl), organisms (o), topography and water (r), parent materials (p) and time (t). Jenny’s equation s = f (cl, o, r, p, t) is analysed with a chapter devoted to each of the state factors in turn. A final chapter attempts a synthesis through which the various factors are integrated. The treatment in this “overview” is less successful than