Nutrient and Litter Patterns in Three Subalpine Coniferous Forests of Western Sichuan, China

Seasonal Dynamics of Litterfall in a Sub-Alpine Spruce-Fir Forest on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau: Allometric Scaling Relationships Based on One Year of Observations

“…These similar results are mainly due to the homogeneous site conditions and the limitations of low temperatures on litterfall and tree growth [6]. Additionally, the structure of spruce-fir and boreal forests is simple, and plants undergo a few months of dormancy to endure freezing temperatures [18]. Litter production showed similar allocation mechanisms as a result of these factors.…”

“…Forest litterfall data were collected each month except during the four months of the snow-cover period. During the snow-cover period, plants in the cold temperate and boreal regions undergo a few months of dormancy to endure freezing temperatures and low light availability, which may limit plant growth [6,18], and litter production is relatively low and stable [14]. Hence, monthly litterfall during the snow-cover period can be treated as a constant value and can be calculated based on the average litterfall of the four months.…”

Soil fractal features of subalpine coniferous forests in western Sichuan under different anthropogenic disturbances

“…The formula is from reference (Pang et al, 2002b). (Lin and Liu, 2001) and stand for A and B soil layers.…”

“…Therefore, a study about the effect on the ecological system of the forests from anthropogenic disturbances in this area seems imperative (Pang et al, 2002b). Many scholars have carried out studies on the massive structure, the ecological function of litter, nutrient circulation features, and changes of soil characteristics at different recovering stages in this area (Pan and Liu, 1998;Hu et al, 2001;Lin and Liu, 2001;Lin et al, 2002;Pang et al, 2002a). Different fractal dimensions can reflect soil structures and features and we can learn something about soil characteristics by analyzing the different fractal dimensions about the distribution of the soil particles and micro-aggregates (Liang et al, 2003).…”

Effect of thinning-induced gap size on soil CO2 efflux in a reforested spruce forest in the eastern Tibetan Plateau

“…We analyzed the contribution of accelerated litterfall decomposition following thinning to R s. With the assumption of 3.97 × 10 3 kg ha −1 yr −1 litterfall mass, 450 g C kg −1 for litter C concentration, and 29.7% of litter lost within one year as reported by (Lin et al, 2006), R s rate derived from litterfall decomposition was about 0.14 mol CO 2 m −2 s −1 , which was considerably lower than the mean R s rate of 0.45 mol CO 2 m −2 s −1 in this study. Thus, the contribution from accelerated litter decomposition by thinning to the difference in R s rate between the thinned plots and the control was negligible, even all C from litterfall decomposition was transformed to CO 2 .…”