Soil total phosphorus and nitrogen explain vegetation community composition in a northern forest ecosystem near a phosphate massif

Matkala, Laura; Salemaa, Maija; Bäck, Jaana

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-1535-2020

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-1535-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-17-1535-2020

© Author(s) 2020. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 17, issue 6

Research article

|

26 Mar 2020

Research article |

| 26 Mar 2020

Soil total phosphorus and nitrogen explain vegetation community composition in a northern forest ecosystem near a phosphate massif

Laura Matkala, Maija Salemaa, and Jaana Bäck

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Final revised paper (published on 26 Mar 2020)
Preprint (discussion started on 13 May 2019)

Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

RC1: 'review', Anonymous Referee #1, 15 Aug 2019
- AC1: 'Response to referee #1', Laura Matkala, 30 Oct 2019
RC2: 'Comments on bg-2019-110', Anonymous Referee #2, 26 Aug 2019
- AC2: 'Response to referee #2', Laura Matkala, 30 Oct 2019

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (18 Nov 2019) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by Laura Matkala on behalf of the Authors (19 Dec 2019) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (19 Jan 2020) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by Laura Matkala on behalf of the Authors (22 Jan 2020) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to technical corrections (22 Feb 2020) by Yakov Kuzyakov

AR by Laura Matkala on behalf of the Authors (24 Feb 2020) Manuscript

Short summary

We studied how species number and abundance of the understorey vegetation correlates with nutrient contents of soil and tree leaves at a northern boreal forest site. The phosphorus (P) content of the humus layer showed higher correlation with vegetation than the nitrogen (N) content. Usually N is considered more important in boreal forests. The plots with high P content in humus had birch as the dominant tree species, implying that birch leaf litter is an important source of P to the plants.