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Climate change effects on litter decomposition: intensive drought leads to a strong decrease of litter mixture interactions

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Abstract

Background

Litter decomposition is a fundamental process of biogeochemical cycles, and there is a strong consensus that litter mixture interactions are one of the factors driving the decomposition process. A better understanding of how climate change can alter interactions between species and the litter decomposition process could facilitate projections of ecosystem functioning into the future.

Methods

A 24-month litterbag decomposition experiment was carried out in a Mediterranean forest to analyze the effects of climate and species diversity changes on litter mixture interactions and the decomposition process.

Results

In the control plot, synergistic interactions increased with time and species diversity in litter mixtures, leading to more efficient litter decomposition. Drier conditions obtained in the field with a rain exclusion device decreased decomposition rates, resulting in three-fold less synergistic interactions and five-fold more antagonistic interactions during the decomposition process. Furthermore, synergistic interactions were better preserved in the drought conditions with increasing number of species.

Conclusions

Our findings underline how a longer drought season could strongly affect the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Drier climate led to slower mass loss rates and a strong shift in the litter mixture interactions, with fewer synergistic interactions and more antagonistic interactions.

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Abbreviations

CV:

Coefficient of variation

DSH:

Diversity-stability hypothesis

IMC:

Improved microenvironmental condition

NAE:

Non-additive effect

RME:

Relative mixture effect

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Acknowledgments

We thank Sylvie Dupouyet, Jean-Philippe Orts and Ilja Reiter for their contributions to the set-up of the experiment and the field work, and Caroline Lecareux and Germain Boungou for their assistance on the chemical analyses. We also thank Stephan Hättenschwiler for his contribution to the chemical analyses. This study was funded by the EC2CO-BIOEFFECT program (CNRS) and the French National Research Agency (ANR) through the SecPriMe2 project (ANR-12-BSV7-0016-01), the research federation ECCOREV FR3098 and the LABEX OT-Med. We also thank Europe and the PACA region of France for sponsoring Mathieu Santonja’s PhD work. Finally, we thank ATT (scientific language editing services) for proofreading the draft manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Méditerranéen de Biodiversité et d’Ecologie - IMBE UMR CNRS - Aix Marseille Université - IRD - Avignon Université, CS 80249, Case 4, Marseille, Cedex 03, 13331, France

    Mathieu Santonja, Catherine Fernandez, Thierry Gauquelin & Virginie Baldy

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  1. Mathieu Santonja
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  2. Catherine Fernandez
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  3. Thierry Gauquelin
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  4. Virginie Baldy
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Correspondence to Mathieu Santonja.

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Santonja, M., Fernandez, C., Gauquelin, T. et al. Climate change effects on litter decomposition: intensive drought leads to a strong decrease of litter mixture interactions. Plant Soil 393, 69–82 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2471-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2471-z

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