Microsites and early litter decomposition patterns in the soil and forest canopy at regional scale
- PDF / 1,561,390 Bytes
- 16 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 83 Downloads / 195 Views
(0123456789().,-volV) ( 01234567 89().,-volV)
Microsites and early litter decomposition patterns in the soil and forest canopy at regional scale Yonatan Aguilar-Cruz
. Jose´ G. Garcı´a-Franco . Gerhard Zotz
Received: 8 May 2020 / Accepted: 26 September 2020 / Published online: 13 October 2020 Ó The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Plant litter decomposition is a key ecological process that is mostly studied at the forest floor. However, decomposition generally starts in the canopy. In this study, we evaluated the effect of litter composition and climate on the initial phase of decomposition in the soil and two contrasting types of canopy microsites along an elevational gradient (0–2200 m a.s.l.). To this end, we incubated standard material composed by green (fast decomposing) and rooibos (slow decomposing) tea bags for three months. Tea bags were placed in soil (buried at 5 cm) and in the canopy at ca. 5 m above the ground in ‘‘micro-
Responsible Editor: Myrna Simpson
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-020-00705-3) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. Y. Aguilar-Cruz (&) G. Zotz Institut fu¨r Biologie und Umweltwissenschaften, AG ¨ kologie der Pflanzen, Carl von Ossietzky Funktionelle O Universita¨t Oldenburg, Postfach 2503, 26111 Oldenburg, Germany e-mail: [email protected]
wetlands’’ (tank bromeliads) and dry crown microsites (branches). Along the elevational gradient, green tea decomposed faster than rooibos tea in all microsites and forests. Mass loss for both tea types was lowest on branches at all sites, except for green tea in a wet forest where decomposition did not significantly differ among microsites. In wet forests, decomposition did not differ between bromeliads and soil, while in a dry forest, decomposition was faster in bromeliads. We found that the effects of climatic variables [monthly average temperature (TEMP) and total precipitation (PREC) for the incubation months] on decomposition differed between microsites. Along the elevational gradient, the mass loss in soil was positively correlated with TEMP but not with PREC, whereas on branches, mass loss was negatively correlated with TEMP and positively correlated with PREC. Unlike on branches, mass loss in bromeliads slightly decreased with PREC and increased with TEMP. Our study shows that microsite conditions interact with climate (TEMP and PREC) leading to differences in the general decomposition patterns in the forest canopy. Keywords Arboreal soil Elevational gradient Tea bag index Epiphytes Bromeliads
G. Zotz e-mail: [email protected] J. G. Garcı´a-Franco Red Ecologı´a Funcional, Instituto de Ecologı´a AC, 91000 Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico e-mail: [email protected]
123
16
Introduction Plant litter decomposition is a key ecological process that involves a series of physical, chemical, and biological processes that transform organic matter into increasingly stable forms, contributing to soil fertility, long-term ca
Data Loading...
