Abstract
There are six morphogenetic types of forest ground litter in the gradient of big grass-sphagnous-dead litter marsh birch forest: deeply degraded litter, half degraded litter, rhizomatous litter (coarsely degraded), peaty litter, turfy-formed litter, and turfy litter. The specificity of their biochemical transformations is caused by the accumulation of humic acids (HA), especially of the first fraction (HA-1), alongside the relatively steady background formation of fulvic acids. The C/N value suggests that the intensity of HA-1 formation is closely associated with the biological activity of the substrate. However, the indistinct difference of these parameters in the forestry-morphological types of litters limits their diagnostic reliability. Grouped biochemical types of litters, such as “soft” (half- and deeply degraded), “intermediate” (rhizomatous, peaty and turfy-formed), and “coarse” (mossy), are considerably discriminated by both the C/N ratio (20, 30, 40) and the level of HA-1 (14, 10, and 6%) respectively.
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Original Russian Text © T.T. Efremova, A.F. Avrova, S.P. Efremov, 2013, published in Sibirskii Ekologicheskii Zhurnal, 2013, No. 5, pp. 751–760.
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Efremova, T.T., Avrova, A.F. & Efremov, S.P. Formalized analysis of associativity of morphogenetic types and humus condition of ground litter in marsh birch forests. Contemp. Probl. Ecol. 6, 569–577 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1134/S199542551305003X
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S199542551305003X