Pedogenic controls of soil organic carbon stocks and stability beneath montane Norway spruce forests along a precipitation gradient.

Reliable data on SOC stocks in forest soils is required in the context of climate change and soil health assessments but still limited by input data availability (e.g., bulk density) and methods used for stock calculation. Relatively few studies have investigated the stability of SOC in forest soils. We investigated SOC stocks and fractionation in soils beneath Norway spruce forests and grasslands in the montane zone along a gradient of mean annual precipitation (MAP). We sampled soil cores volumetrically to 40 cm depth and measured SOC in the fractions <2 mm (fine earth), >200 μm and 200-20 μm (coarse and fine POM), and <20 μm (MAOM) along with potential pedogenic controls. Total SOC stocks beneath forests in the study region, calculated by the equivalent soil mass (ESM) approach to 40 cm depth, amount to 79.0 ± 29.9 (mean ± standard deviation) Mg ha

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.