DOI: 10.6073/pasta/9b643fab5b80687776c8a65f9798d5d6
title: Baltimore Ecosystem Study: Physical, chemical and biological properties of forest and home lawn soils

description: Abstract:
 
 
 One-meter soil cores were taken to evaluate soil texture, bulk
 density, carbon and nitrogen pools, microbial biomass carbon and
 nitrogen content, microbial respiration, potential net nitrogen
 mineralization, potential net nitrification and inorganic nitrogen
 pools in 32 residential home lawns that differed by previous land
 use and age, but had similar soil types. These were compared to
 soils from 8 forested reference sites.
 
 
 Purpose:
 
 
 Soil cores were obtained from residential and forest sites in the
 Baltimore, MD USA metropolitan area. The residential sites were
 mostly within the Gwynns Falls Watershed (-76.012008W, -77.314183E,
 39.724847N, 38.708367S and approximately 17 km2) Lawns on
 residential sites were dominated by a variety of cool season
 turfgrasses. Forest soil cores were taken from permanent forest
 plots of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study (BES) LTER (Groffman et al.
 2006). These remnant forests are over 100 years old with soils that
 were comparable in type and texture to those underlying the
 residential study sites. Soils from all sites were from the Manor
 series (coarse-loamy, micaceous, mesic Typic Dystrudepts), which are
 well-drained upland soils with loamy textures and bedrock at 5 to 10
 feet below the soil surface.
 
 
 To aid the site selection process we used neighborhoods in the
 Baltimore City metropolitan area that have been mapped using
 HERCULES, a high resolution land cover classification system
 designed to assist in the study of human-ecological systems
 (Cadenasso et al. 2007). Using HERCULES and additional data sources,
 we identified residential sites that were similar except for single
 factors that we hypothesized to be important predictors of ecosystem
 dynamics. These factors included land use history (agriculture and
 forest, n = 10 and n = 22), housing density (low and medium/high, n
 = 9 and n = 23), and housing age (4 to 58 yrs old, n = 32). Housing
 age was acquired from the Maryland Property View database. Prior
 land use was determined based on land use change maps developed by
 integrating aerial photos from 1938, 1957, 1971, and 1999 into a
 geographic information system. Once a list of residential parcels
 meeting the predefined criteria were identified, we sent mailings to
 property owners chosen at random from each of the factor groups with
 the goal of recruiting 40 property owners for a 3 year study (of
 which this work is a part). We had recruited 32 property owners at
 the time that soil cores were obtained.
 
 
 Data have been published in Raciti et al. (2011a, 2011b)
 
 
 References
 
 
 Cadenasso, M. L., S. T. A. Pickett, and K. Schwarz. 2007. Spatial
 heterogeneity in urban ecosystems: reconceptualizing land cover and
 a framework for classification. Frontiers in Ecology and the
 Environment 5:80-88.
 https://doi.org/10.1890/1540-9295(2007)5[80:SHIUER]2.0.CO;2
 
 
 Groffman, P. M., R. V. Pouyat, M. L. Cadenasso, W. C. Zipperer, K.
 Szlavecz, I. D. Yesilonis, L. E. Band, and G. S. Brush. 2006. Land
 use context and natural soil controls on plant community composition
 and soil nitrogen and carbon dynamics in urban and rural forests.
 Forest Ecology and Management 236:177-192.
 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2006.09.002
 
 
 Raciti, S. M., Groffman, P. M., Jenkins, J. C., Pouyat, R. V.,
 Fahey, T. J., Pickett, S. T. A., & Cadenasso, M. L. (2011a).
 Nitrate production and availability in residential soils. Ecological
 Applications, 21(7), 2357–2366. https://doi.org/10.1890/10-2009.1
 
 
 Raciti, S.M., Groffman, P.M., Jenkins, J.C. et al. (2011b).
 Accumulation of Carbon and Nitrogen in Residential Soils with
 Different Land-Use Histories. Ecosystems 14, 287–297.
 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-010-9409-3