Biogeosciences www.biogeosciences.net 1726-4170 1726-4189 6 12 2009 10.5194/bg-6-2809-2009 http://www.biogeosciences.net/6/2809/2009/ http://www.biogeosciences.net/6/2809/2009/bg-6-2809-2009.html http://www.biogeosciences.net/6/2809/2009/bg-6-2809-2009.pdf 2809 2827 2009-12-03 Fine root dynamics for forests on contrasting soils in the Colombian Amazon E. M. Jiménez emjimenez@unal.edu.co F. H. Moreno M. C. Peñuela S. Patiño J. Lloyd Grupo de Ecología de Ecosistemas Terrestres Tropicales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Amazonia, Instituto Amazónico de Investigaciones-Imani, km. 2, vía Tarapacá, Leticia, Amazonas, Colombia Grupo de Bosques y Cambio Climático, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín, Ápartado Aéreo 1779, \newline Medellín, Colombia Earth and Biosphere Institute, School of Geography, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK previously at: Max Planck Institute fuer Biogeochemie, Jena, Germany It has been hypothesized that as soil fertility increases, the amount of carbon allocated to below-ground production (fine roots) should decrease. To evaluate this hypothesis, we measured the standing crop fine root mass and the production of fine roots (<2 mm) by two methods: (1) ingrowth cores and, (2) sequential soil coring, during 2.2 years in two lowland forests growing on different soils types in the Colombian Amazon. Differences of soil resources were defined by the type and physical and chemical properties of soil: a forest on clay loam soil (Endostagnic Plinthosol) at the Amacayacu National Natural Park and, the other on white sand (Ortseinc Podzol) at the Zafire Biological Station, located in the Forest Reservation of the Calderón River. We found that the standing crop fine root mass and the production was significantly different between soil depths (0–10 and 10–20 cm) and also between forests. The loamy sand forest allocated more carbon to fine roots than the clay loam forest with the production in loamy sand forest twice (mean±standard error=2.98±0.36 and 3.33±0.69 Mg C ha^−1 yr^−1, method 1 and 2, respectively) as much as for the more fertile loamy soil forest (1.51±0.14, method 1, and from 1.03±0.31 to 1.36±0.23 Mg C ha^−1 yr^−1, method 2). 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