Effects of forest structure on litter production, soil chemical composition and litter-soil interactions

Abstract

Litter production in forest ecosystems is a major indicator of primary productivity because litter helps incorporate carbon and nutrients from plants into the soil and is directly involved in plant-soil interactions. To our knowledge, few studies have investigated the relationship between species diversity and ecosystem processes in subtropical forest fragments. In this work, we determined forest structural parameters and assessed seasonal leaf litter input, leaf decomposition rate, litter quality and soil characteristics in two subtropical Atlantic Forest fragments. Litter production was greater in the native fragment with the higher species diversity (FN1). Th e two native fragments (FN1 and FN2) diff ered in basal area, volume and dominance in the upper stratum, which were positively correlated with litter production in FN1 but negatively correlated in FN2. Soil in FN1 exhibited higher contents of organic C, available phosphorus and exchangeable calcium, and the leaf litter had a higher C:N ratio. Although these results are consistent with a plant-soil feedback, which suggests the presence of a complementary eff ect, the dominance of certain families in subtropical forest fragments results in a selection eff ect on litter productivity and decomposition.

Respostas morfológicas ao alagamento em espécies arbóreas de florestas ribeirinhas subtropicais brasileiras

“…As espécies avaliadas pertencem as famílias Myrtaceae e Fabaceae, consideradas as mais representativas em fragmentos florestais subtropicais, com importantes serviços ecossistêmicos (Capellesso et al 2016, Oliveira et al 2017, Capellesso et al 2018. A alta riqueza e abundância destas famílias em fragmentos florestais subtropicais podem estar associadas com a capacidade em enfrentar diferentes filtros ambientais, incluindo os períodos frequentes de saturação hídrica do solo, alternados com períodos de seca, além dos regimes de luminosidade.…”

Different Patterns Of Nutrient Cycling In Contiguous Phytophysiognomies Of Atlantic Forest, Brazil

“…The higher total annual litterfall in the Mata Alta was a result of the more robust structure of that phytophysiognomy, which, in turn, led to the differences between the areas in terms of primary productivity (Capellesso et al, 2016) related to their contrasting edaphic characteristics. The soil in the Mussununga area is sandy and nutrient-poor when compared to the Mata Alta soil (Garay et al, 1995) due to cation leaching.…”

Can Dominant Canopy Species Leaf Litter Determine Soil Nutrient Heterogeneity? A Case Study in a Tropical Rainforest in Southwest China

“…Dominant canopy species, especially adult tree individuals, occupy a large proportion of biomass, in both temperate and tropical forests (Hu et al 2015;Wu et al 2015;Li et al 2018). Evidently, leaf production shows strong correlation with tree biomass (Baishya and Barik 2011;Poorter et al 2012;Zhang et al 2015), and therefore, trees with high biomass produce a large amount of leaf litter input (Nouvellon et al 2012;Capellesso et al 2016). Earlier, some studies have reported that dominant tree species litter could significantly affect spatial soil nutrient heterogeneity in temperate ecosystems (Suo et al 2016) and northern hardwood forests (Bigelow and Canham 2015).…”