Abstract
Bottomland hardwood forests are a historically dominant ecosystem in the
Southeastern United States, with 5.3 million-acres remaining in the
Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley. Despite the importance of forested
wetlands in the global carbon cycle, not much is known about CO2
exchanges in such periodically flooded ecosystems. To address this, CO2
fluxes were measured over a mature, predominantly oak bottomland
hardwood forest canopy in Northeast Louisiana. Measurements were carried
out from a 37m tower, between August 2013 to October 2018, using the
eddy covariance technique. Like other deciduous broadleaf forests, the
site exhibited distinct diurnal and seasonal variability and was a net
carbon sink during the spring and summer months, but unlike the majority
of such forests and inland wetlands, the site was a net source of carbon
annually. The cumulative annual net ecosystem exchange (NEE) ranged from
95.99 g C m-2 in 2014, to 267.91 g C m-2 in 2017, with an average annual
NEE of 127.75 g C m-2. To better understand the variability, the
relationship between the environmental factors and the components of NEE
were observed. Diurnally, GPP increased with increasing global radiation
and exceeded Reco from around 830 till around 1800 hrs. Seasonally,
nighttime Reco increased with temperature. GPP increased and exceeded
Reco from late March to early August, with a corresponding increase in
the length of daylight, temperature, and leaf area index. GPP values
showed more variability than Reco on a daily scale, thereby having a
more distinct effect on the NEE. Research is on-going to better
understand the effects of the characteristic flooding on carbon fluxes
in this unique ecosystem.