Properties of soils in the rehabilitated degraded tropical lowland and hill dipterocarp forests in Peninsular Malaysia

摘要

A study was conducted to characterize the soil properties of two rehabilitated major forest types in Peninsular Malaysia, representing lowland and hill dipterocarp forests located at Bidor and Kinta Forest Reserves, respectively. Twelve soil profileswere dug both in rehabilitated lowland and hill dipterocarp forests including two profiles in natural forest as the control were selected at each site. The significant effect of rehabilitation forests could be seen by the accumulation of organic matter in the uppermost layer, which was assumed to be at an intermediate stage of mineralization. The soils at both sites were acidic, having low activity clay resulting in low CEC, available P, total nitrogen and exchangeable bases, but high in exchangeable Al. High exchangeable Al was the main cause of soil acidity, associated with high rainfall in the humid tropical region. The main source of negative charge was the organic matter, which affect the CEC, PZSE and siga_p values which influence the soil fertility status. The soils are considered as strongly weathered, almost devoid of 2:1 type clay minerals. Kaolinite and gibbsite dominate the clay fraction of the soils at both sites. It is imperative that soil properties should be taken into consideration during rehabilitation of degraded forestland in tropical rainforests.