“…However, the SOC concentrations were lower in the control than in the thinned sites in the autumn. Thinning may have allowed for the establishment of shrubs and graminoids with higher decomposition rates than the conifers in the summer (Table 1, S1), which allowed the thinned sites to compensate for the reduced total carbon inputs through an increased proportion of more rapidly decomposable leaf litter and root litter during the autumn (Chen and Shrestha, 2012;Brassard et al, 2013). The SOC differed significantly only over the four sampling dates in the upper soil, and the warmer months (July and October) had higher SOC values than January and April.…”