It is well documented that changes in land use result in changes in soil properties. Costa Rica offers one of the most unique settings for studying soils and land use changes in the tropics. Once almost completely covered in forest, the country now bears the scars of colonization and development. However, Costa Rica is currently a working model of ecological protection and home to a successful eco-tourism industry. By setting aside large tracts of land for conservation, Costa Rica is a perfect location to compare changes in soil properties with changes in land use.
The soils at the Texas Christian University San Ramon Tropical Research Station in Costa Rica, a private facility dedicated to conservation and research, have never been studied. In order to understand how land use changes have affected them, soil quality analyses were conducted. Soil pits in primary growth forest, secondary growth forest, and deforested land once used for cattle grazing were be dug in order to carry out a suite of soil tests. The results indicate that while bulk density will increase following deforestation and cattle trampling, soil porosity will return with forest succession. Cation exchange capacity results on the other hand indicate that soil fertility increases with the introduction of grasses in deforested areas. Cations also show a return to pre-disturbance levels with forest succession, which in this case is lower than post-disturbance levels.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TCU/oai:etd.tcu.edu:etd-04262010-112228 |
| Date | 26 April 2010 |
| Creators | Tower, Bryan Wallace |
| Contributors | Michael C Slattery, NO SEARCH ENGINE ACCESS |
| Publisher | Texas Christian University |
| Source Sets | Texas Christian University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf, application/octet-stream |
| Source | http://etd.tcu.edu/etdfiles/available/etd-04262010-112228/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to TCU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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