LAUSR

Abstract Although disturbances associated with selective logging can cause pronounced changes in soil characteristics and nutrient stocks, such information is very limited for highly weathered soils in Africa. We assessed the effects of reduced impact logging (RIL, with a 30-year rotation management plan) and conventional logging (CL, without a management plan) on physical and biochemical characteristics of Ferralsol soils that developed on pre-Cambrian rocks in rainforests of Cameroon. Five to seven months after the logging operations were completed, we mapped the CL and RIL sites and quantified the disturbed areas: felling gaps, skidding trails, logging decks and roads. We selected four replicate plots at each site that encompassed these four disturbed strata and an adjacent undisturbed area as the reference. At each disturbed stratum and reference area per plot, we took soil samples down to 50 cm, and quantified soil physical and biochemical characteristics. Nutrient exports with timber harvest were also quantified. The logging intensity was very low with removals of 0.2 and 0.3 tree per hectare, and the ground area disturbed accounted only 5.2% and 4.0% of the total area in CL and RIL, respectively. In terms of area disturbance for each harvested tree, CL had 753 m2 tree−1 more affected ground area than RIL. Roads and logging decks were the most affected by logging operations, where effective cation exchange capacity, soil organic carbon (SOC), total nitrogen (N), Bray-extractable phosphorus (P) and exchangeable aluminum decreased whereas pH, 15N natural abundance and exchangeable manganese increased compared to the undisturbed reference area (P