Plant species traits are the predominant control on litter decomposition rates within biomes worldwide

Abstract

Worldwide decomposition rates depend both on climate and the legacy of plant functional traits as litter quality. To quantify the degree to which functional differentiation among species affects their litter decomposition rates, we brought together leaf trait and litter mass loss data for 818 species from 66 decomposition experiments on six continents. We show that: (i) the magnitude of species-driven differences is much larger than previously thought and greater than climate-driven variation; (ii) the decomposability of a species' litter is consistently correlated with that species' ecological strategy within different ecosystems globally, representing a new connection between whole plant carbon strategy and biogeochemical cycling. This connection between plant strategies and decomposability is crucial for both understanding vegetation-soil feedbacks, and for improving forecasts of the global carbon cycle.

Genotypic variability in Populus tremula L. affects how anthropogenic nitrogen enrichment influences litter decomposition

“…The unexpected reduction in SLA in response to the high N level could provide an explanation for why N addition caused a reduction in mass loss in our study. SLA is well known to be positively correlated with mass loss (Cornwell et al 2008;Garnier and Navas 2012), and contrary to our study usually increases in response to N addition (Knops and Reinhart 2000). The reduction in SLA in response to added N in our study could have been a result of leaf mass increasing more rapidly in response to N than leaf area.…”

Controls on Coarse Wood Decay in Temperate Tree Species: Birth of the LOGLIFE Experiment

“…After the first study of this kind on leaf litter in a temperate flora (Cornelissen 1996), this common garden approach made some key advances at Abisko Research Station in sub-Arctic Sweden under the guidance and directorship of Terry Callaghan (Quested et al 2003;Cornelissen et al 2007;Freschet et al 2012c) and eventually in many biomes of the world. Together these studies revealed that the range of variation in leaf litter decomposition rates among species within sites worldwide was generally greater than the range of variation of a given litter type across climatic zones from the Arctic to the Tropics (Cornwell et al 2008). Freschet et al (2012a) extended this approach to decomposition of dead wood of six sub-Arctic species, again at Abisko Research Station.…”

Slow recovery of a secondary tropical forest in Southeast Asia

“…obs; Turner and Tan, 1991;Poorter et al, 2009), and the foliar nitrogen and phosphorous content of A. dumosa, D. suffruticosa and R. cinerea are very low (Grubb et al, 1994). Both of these leaf traits have been shown to slow decomposition rates (Cornwell et al, 2008), and slow decomposition leads to a buildup of leaf litter that may inhibit seedling establishment and growth (Metcalfe et al, 1998;Metcalfe and Grubb, 1997;Facelli and Pickett, 1991). Recently, Goldsmith et al (2011) found that higher leaf litter depth in the secondary forest was a likely explanation for the lower seedling density in the secondary forest plot than the primary forest plot at BTNR.…”