Spatial variability of soil total nitrogen in a natural broad-leaved Korean pine mixed forest

Geostatistics method was applied to study the spatial variability of soil total nitrogen in a natural broad-leaved Korean pine mixed forest in Changbai Mountain, Jilin province, China. Three plots, sized 50 m×50 m each, were setup to sample in 2009. The results show that the soil total nitrogen decreased as the depth of the soil increases, coefficient of variation of the soil total nitrogen varied between 20% and 60%. The soil total nitrogen in all soil layers of all plots followed normal distribution. The variograms of the nitrogen content could be well fitted with spherical model, and the mean range was 6.137 m. Soil total nitrogen in the study area had medium spatial correlation, and the spatial variability was affected by both structural factors and random factors.