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Effects of Insect Mass Outbreaks on Throughfall Composition in Even Aged European Pine Stands - Implications for the C and N Cycling
| Anne le Mellec1*, Jerzy Karg2, Zdzislaw Bernacki2, Jolanta Slowik3, Ignaczy Korczynski4, Timo Krummel1, Andrzej Mazur4, Holger Vogt-Altena1, Gerhard Gerold1 and Annett Reinhardt1 | |
| 1University of Goettingen, Landscape Ecology Section, Goldschmidtstr. 5, D-37077 Goettingen, Germany | |
| 2Research Centre for Agricultural and Forest Environment, Polish Academy of Sciences, Field Station Turew, Szkolna 4, Pl-4-000 Kościan, Poland | |
| 3University of Goettingen, Centre for Nature Conservation (CNC), von Sieboldstrasse 2, D-7075 Goettingen, Germany | |
| 4Poznan University of Life Sciences, Department of Forest Entomology, Ul. Wojska Polskiego 71c, PL-60-637 Poznan, Poland | |
| Corresponding Author : | Anne le Mellec University of Goettingen Landscape Ecology Section Goldschmidtstr. 5, D-37077 Goettingen, Germany Tel: (+49) 0551-3912134; E-mail: amellec@gwdg.de |
| Received November 12, 2010; Accepted December 22, 2010; Published December 24, 2010 | |
| Citation: le Mellec A, Karg J, Bernacki Z, Slowik J, Korczynski I, et al. (2010) Effects of Insect Mass Outbreaks on Throughfall Composition in Even Aged European Pine Stands - Implications for the C and N Cycling. J Earth Sci Climat Change 1:101. doi: 10.4172/2157-7617.1000101 | |
| Copyright: © 2010 le Mellec A, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. | |
Abstract
In this paper we report on the herbivore-affected C and N concentrations in the throughfall and altered canopy to soil transfer during a Pine Lappet (Dendrolimus pini L) mass infestation in 60-year-old Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris L) forests. Our investigations covered a period of 7 months and could show, that herbivore defoliation significantly altered C and N concentrations in the throughfall solution and enhanced organic matter input situation to the forest floor. Compared to the uninfested site mean concentrations of the throughfall solution at the infested site under strong frass activity contained 80% more C and 61% more N. Additionally, C and N inputs were with 131 kg C ha-1 time-1 and 9.6 kg N ha-1 time-1 higher under strong frass activity during 3 months compared to the input at the uninfested site. We assume that outbreaks of phytophagous insects play an important key role in monoculture forest by influencing the nutrient turnover.
