Disturbance legacies regulate coastal forest soil stability to changing salinity and inundation: A soil transplant experiment

Coastal forests worldwide are vulnerable to a dramatic transition from upland to wetland as sea-level rise accelerates and regimes of precipitation and storms change. However, the biogeochemical impacts of shifting salinity and inundation disturbance that foreshadow forest to wetland state transitions are largely unknown. This experiment used a natural salinity gradient in a tidal creek in eastern Maryland, U.S.A., to examine how soil respiration and chemistry may change under novel salinity and inundation disturbance regimes. Soil monoliths were transplanted in a reciprocal design among plots varying in seawater exposure and elevation above the creek. We monitored the monoliths’ carbon dioxide (CO2) flux for two years and performed soil chemical analyses at the end of the experiment. Soil CO2 flux was affected by changing disturbance regimes and responses were dependent upon the salinity and inundation legacies associated with each study location. Lowland soil CO2 flux was resistant to changing salinity and inundation disturbance, with transplanted soil monolith chemistry composition in between that of its origin and destination. Conversely, upland soil CO2 flux was sensitive to changing salinity and inundation disturbance and remained suppressed throughout the 2-year study when exposed to wetter, saline conditions. Additionally, transplanted upland soil chemistry composition was like that of its destination, rather than origin, with upland soils displaying higher pH, base saturation, and nutrient availability relative to lowland soils. We hypothesize that reductions in soil respiration rates were driven by loss of soil nutrients and osmotic and redox stress on microbial communities following exposure to seawater. Together, our results suggest that disturbance legacies shape coastal forest soil responses to changing salinity and inundation disturbance regimes. However, fully understanding the dependence of system responses on disturbance legacies requires future study across a variety of systems and spatial and temporal scales. •Coastal forest soil responses to novel salinity and inundation regimes are uncertain.•Forest soils were transplanted along salinity and elevation gradients for 2 years.•Lowland soil respiration was resistant to changing salinity disturbance regimes.•Upland soil respiration was consistently suppressed under wetter, saline conditions.•Changes in soil chemistry were indicative of relative resistance and resilience.