Tests of soil organic carbon density modeled by InTEC in China's forest ecosystems

The integrated terrestrial ecosystem C-budget model (InTEC) developed by Chen and co-workers has been used successfully to predict carbon dynamics of forests in Canada. It was tested here for forest soil organic carbon (SOC) density of China's northern temperate zone and southern subtropical zone. The results show that the simulated SOC density is highly correlated and in broad agreement with observations in Liping and in Changbaishan, representing the southern subtropical zone and the northern temperate zone in China, respectively. SOC density ranged from 2.2 to 11.2 kg/m2 in Liping and from 3.4 to 14.8 kg/m2 in Changbaishan. The correlation coefficients (r2) are 0.63 (N=16) and 0.76 (N=14) between the simulated and measured data in Liping and Changbaishan, respectively. The SOC densities under different vegetation types in Liping decrease in the order of mixed forest, broadleaf forest, Chinese fir, couch grass, and Chinese redpine, and in Changbaishan in the order of mixed forest, silver fir, larch forest, and birch forest.