High quality litters with faster initial decomposition produce more stable residue remaining in a subtropical forest ecosystem
2022
Li, Renshan | Yang, Tunan | Guan, Xin | Chen, Longchi | Wang, Qingkui | Wang, Silong | Zhang, Weidong
The regulation of factors like litter quality and soil mesofauna on litter decomposition in the early stage has been studied extensively in forest ecosystems. However, how litter decomposition was influenced by its quality and soil mesofauna in the late stage is largely unclear, especially in subtropical forest ecosystem. In the present study, litters from 16 species with contrasting chemical traits were incubated in a subtropical broadleaved forest for 2 years, and then the initial decomposition rate in early stage and stable residue remaining in late stage were calculated by using an asymptotic decomposition model. Litter bags with different mesh sizes (0.1 or 2 mm) were used to evaluate the role of soil mesofauna in regulating litter decomposition. Our results showed that litters with higher quality decomposed faster in early stage, and also had a larger fraction of stable residue remaining in the late stage. In addition, soil mesofauna exclusion had no influence on the decomposition rate at early stage, but significantly increased the stable residue remaining from 8.71% to 17.96%. We highlighted that the quality of plant litters play an important role in regulating the decomposition process in both early and late stage of decomposition, and thus the nutrient cycling and soil carbon (C) sink, in subtropical forest ecosystem.
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