Soil Respiration Measurements in a Temperate and a Tropical Forest

The development of low power sensor technology has allowed for long term, continuous measurements of environmental conditions in remote locations. We have deployed a wireless sensor network to monitor soil temperature, moisture, and carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC). A sister pilot system was deployed at an upland tropical rainforest in Yasuni National Park, Ecuador. Here we compare soil CO2 efflux data from the two systems at similar temperature conditions. At both sites, the chamber and gas well methods were used to quantify soil CO2 efflux. Average soil CO2 efflux measured by the chamber method was 2.3 umol m-2 s-1 ± 0.8 and 2.8 umol m-2 s-1± 0.4 at SERC and Yasuni respectively. The Millington Quirk and the Penman models were used to calculate the efflux. Average effluxes generated by the Millington Quick gas well method were 3.6 umol m-2 s-1 ± 0.2 and 5.6 umol m-2 s-1± 0.4 at SERC and Yasuni, respectively. Soil temperatures varied from 20-23 °C during the time periods that were compared. Concentrations were higher and the variation was larger at shallow depths in the rainforest soil (between 2300 ppm and 5000 ppm versus 2000 ppm to 3000 ppm) than the temperature forest soil at weather conditions. Later, under different temperature and moisture regimes the CO2 concentrations at the shallow depth at SERC have reached values over 20,000 ppm. Rain events were captured in both ecosystems with a sharper pulse at SERC. At both sites soil CO2 efflux correlated with soil moisture strongly than with temperature over short time periods. Soil CO2 effluxes were calculated to be three times higher when using the Penman model versus the Millington Quirk model. Also, the latter model was more comparable to the chamber measurements but the values were still 30-40% greater. Gas well models need to be refined to more accurately reflect the actual efflux and need to incorporate potential for aqueous CO2 transport in wet environments. Overall, the soil CO2 effluxes during the measurement period were comparable in the two different ecosystems.