The Role of Soil Organic Matter and Manures in Sustainable Nutrient Cycling - Sustainable Management of Soil Organic Matter - page 322

G.Guggenbergeret al. Soils andSOMfrom CentralTaigato Forest Tundra

4.14

Soils and Soil Organic
Matter Along a Transect
from Central Taiga to Forest
Tundra, Siberia

G. G UGGENBERGER 1 , S. B USSEMER 2 , J.G. K ARPOV 3
AND E.L. B ARANOVSKIJ 3

1
Institute of Soil Science and Soil Geography, University of
Bayreuth, D-95440 Bayreuth; 2 Institute of Geography, Ludwig
Maximilians-University,Luisenstraße37, D-80333 München,
Germany; and 3 Permafrost Soil StationIgarkaof the Russian
Academy of Science,Igarka, Russian Federation

Introduction

Permafrost-affected soils cover 13% of the terrestrial surface and 65% of
the land surface of the Russian Federation (Bockheim et al ., 1994). Despite
this large distribution, the periglacial soil landscape of the Siberian taiga
has been investigated in small scale only. In addition, results of soil classifi-
cation according to the Russian taxonomy cannot be related directly to the
Canadian or American systems. However, internationally available and
comparable data on distribution and classification of permafrost-affected
soils in Russia are prerequisites to transfer knowledge on carbon cycling
obtained for Northern American soils to the situation in Siberia. One goal
of our study, therefore, was to assess the distribution of soils along a
South-North transect covering the vegetation belts of the central taiga, the
northern taiga and the forest tundra according to USDA Soil Taxonomy.
The latitudinal zonation of vegetation and climate provides, furthermore, a
good opportunity to study the effects of climate on soil organic matter
(SOM) along this transect. Such investigations in these rural areas are of
particular importance, because global warming is expected to be most at
high latitudes including Siberia. Thus, the second goal of this investigation
was to compare the chemical and isotopic composition of SOM along the
climatic gradient.