The effect of Robinia pseudoacacia expansion on the soil particle size distribution on Mount Tai, China

Abstract The soil particle size distribution (PSD) is a fundamental physical property that can affect soil nutrients, soil structure characterization and soil hydraulic properties. However, the effect of plant expansion on soil PSD is not clear. Therefore, in this study, fractal theory was applied to quantitatively describe the PSD. On Mount Tai, artificial afforestation with Robinia pseudoacacia is helpful in restoring ecosystems and improving soil quality. However, clonal spread allows R. pseudoacacia to easily escape cultivation, leading to the formation of mixed forests. Therefore, exploring the effect of R. pseudoacacia expansion on soil PSD is important. The results show that 1) R. pseudoacacia expansion increased the clay and silt contents and reduced the sand content; 2) R. pseudoacacia expansion significantly reduced the capacity dimension, entropy dimension, and correlation dimension and increased the width and asymmetry of the singularity spectra but was unrelated to the entropy dimension/capacity dimension; and 3) the capacity dimension was significantly positively correlated with the sand content and significantly negatively correlated with the silt and clay contents, but the asymmetry of the soil PSD was inconsistent with the capacity dimension. In summary, R. pseudoacacia can reduce the heterogeneity of the PSD by increasing the distribution range and density of the PSD. Our results provide important insight into the effect of plant expansion on soil PSD.