ESTIMATING TOTAL SOIL MASS, NUTRIENT CONTENT, AND TRACE-METALS IN SOILS UNDER A LOW ELEVATION SPRUCE-FIR FOREST

The concentration, contents, and distribution of nutrients, metals, an d soil materials were quantified at the Howland Integrated Forest Stud y (HIFS) site in eastern Maine. The site is a mature, low-elevation sp ruce-fir forest on Podzolic soils developed from dense basal till. Sta ndard morphologically based soil sampling and quantitative soil pits w ere both used to characterize the soil component of this ecosystem. Ve rtical trends in nutrient concentrations at the site were largely gove rned by the distribution of organic matter. Standard morphological soi l sampling techniques tended to overestimate soil pools of labile cati onic nutrients and C, and underestimate trace metals and P, as a resul t of underestimations of coarse fragment content. These discrepancies can be critical if extrapolations for nutrients, metals, and C are mad e using existing databases to regional or global scales.