Carbon Changes During the Growth of Loblolly Pine on Formerly Cultivated Soil: The Calhoun Experimental Forest, U.S.A.

Abstract

Although deforestation and reforestation profoundly affect the global carbon cycle (Schlesinger, 1990, 1991; Sundquist, 1993), our understanding of the forest carbon cycle from the local to the global scale is limited. This incomplete understanding is in part due to the lack of long-term forest experiments with permanent soil plots and archived soil samples. Such experiments will increase in usefulness as forest lands are managed with ever greater intensity, as forest lands continue to be cleared and converted to other uses and where cultivated soil is afforested.