Decomposition of Avena sterilis litter under arid conditions

Seasonal patterns in decomposition and nutrient release from East African savanna grasses grown under contrasting nutrient conditions

“…Our results are consistent with previous work initiated in a wet season (Dubeux et al, 2006;Hamadi et al, 2000;Jama and Nair, 1996), which reported a biphasic litter decomposition pattern. However, the order was reversed in our study, initiated in the dry season, with an initial slow decomposition rate in the dry season followed by a faster decomposition rate on the onset of rainfall.…”

“…Dubeux et al (2006) suggested that higher tissue C:N ratios indicate lower N concentration in tissues rather than changes in C concentrations. The decrease in litter N over the study period contrasted with the findings of several previous studies (Deshmukh, 1985;Dubeux et al, 2006;Hamadi et al, 2000;Liu et al, 2011), which reported increased nitrogen masses over the study period. The 68-75% N and 73-83% P of the initial mass released by the end of our 20-week study were higher than the 20-30% N and 60% P mineralization reported by Dubeux et al (2006) for 18-week incubation in sub-tropical Florida, USA.…”

“…This is consistent with moisture being the main factor influencing decomposition rates (Austin and Vitousek, 2000;Epstein et al, 2002;Mugendi and Nair, 1997;Vitousek et al, 1994), further supported by the positive correlation observed between the decomposition constant (k) and rainfall. Notably, however, C and N in our study did not mineralize simultaneously as observed in several previous studies in which patterns of both C loss and N release followed a multiphase regression model (Hamadi et al, 2000;Jama and Nair, 1996). In our study, litter decomposition followed a multiphase regression model, whereas N release did not; this was similar to the findings of Dubeux et al (2006) in sub-tropical Florida, USA.…”

Microbial Functional Diversity Associated with Plant Litter Decomposition Along a Climatic Gradient

“…Each of these 5 l bags was oven-dried at 60°C for a minimum of 72 h, weighed for litter moisture determination followed by organic matter quantification using a muffle furnace at 390°C for 8 h. The weight loss for each bag was determined according to the Hamadi et al [29] equation, and a first-order kinetic constant (k) for weight loss was calculated as follows:…”

“…The contents of the additional 5 l bags were crushed to a size of 2 mm by using a "Wiley milled" [29] before determination of biological components and chemical parameters as below.…”