Soil Organic Carbon Stocks and Their Relationships with Soil Properties Under Three Forest Covers in the Djebel Guezoul communal forest (Tiaret, Algeria)
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Forest soils store a large share of terrestrial organic carbon, but data from the semi-arid forests of the western Algerian High Plains are scarce. This study estimates the organic carbon stock of the 0-30 cm layer in the Djebel Guezoul communal forest (Tiaret, Algeria) and examines how it relates to soil properties under three covers: Prickly juniper (Juniperus oxycedrus.), Aleppo pine (Pinus halepensis) and holm oak (Quercus ilex). The area lies in the semi-arid, cold-winter bioclimatic stage (annual rainfall 356.7 mm; De Martonne index 13.87; Emberger quotient 27.11). Fifteen soil samples (five per cover) were analysed for particle-size distribution, bulk density, pH, electrical conductivity, total and active calcium carbonate, organic matter and organic carbon. Soils were mostly sandy loams (clay 6-18 %), non-saline and neutral to alkaline (pH 6.9-8.7), and 13 of 15 samples contained less than 1.5 % total calcium carbonate. Organic carbon ranged from 0.26 to 2.22 %, giving a stock of 7.1-77.9 Mg C per hectare (mean 34.2 ± 23.9). No property, including the stock, differed significantly among covers (p > 0.05), and organic carbon was not significantly correlated with clay, silt, sand, pH or bulk density. Variability among samples within each cover exceeded that among covers. These results suggest that, in this forest, tree species alone is a poor predictor of soil carbon, and that stand condition and topography, which were not measured here, should be recorded in future sampling.
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