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Root litter inputs exert greater influence over soil C than does aboveground litter in a subtropical natural forest

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Abstract

Aims

Changes in plant net primary production due to climate change can influence aboveground and belowground litter inputs to forest soils. We aim to examine the effects of such changes on soil carbon in subtropical forest ecosystems where these effects have not been thoroughly investigated.

Methods

We manipulated aboveground litter inputs and excluded roots in a factorial design, and measured the effects of each treatment and their interactions on soil carbon (C) and soil microbial community structure.

Results

After only 3 years of treatment, aboveground litter addition and root exclusion respectively caused 9% and 21% reductions in soil C concentration in the 0–10 cm soil, likely through different mechanisms. The reduction of soil C with aboveground litter addition was attributed to a priming effect, while reduced root-derived C inputs were likely the cause of the C reduction associated with root exclusion. PLFA analysis showed that both aboveground and belowground litter manipulations reduced Gram-positive bacteria biomass (by 30%–58%) compare to the control, but only root exclusion significantly reduced the actinobacteria biomarkers (by 46%–58%). Fungi, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and ratios of Gram-negative to Gram-positive bacteria and bacteria to fungi did not differ among treatments.

Conclusion

Our results show that root-derived C inputs exert a stronger control on soil C concentrations and microbial community structures than aboveground litter does in subtropical natural forest soils. Our study also highlights that that both increases in aboveground litter and decreases in belowground C input to soil can lead to reduced soil C.

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Acknowledgements

This research was jointly supported by Joint Fund for Promotion of Cross-strait Cooperation in Science and Technology (U1505233), National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 31870601) and National Key Basic Research Program of China (2014CB954003). We are grateful to Cuicui Wei and Xianfeng Li for assistance in soil sampling and laboratory analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Subtropical Mountain Ecology, School of Geographical Science, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350007, China

    Xiaofei Liu, Zhijie Yang, Shidong Chen, Decheng Xiong, Chao Xu, Yiqing Li & Yusheng Yang

  2. Department of Life Science, National Taiwan Normal University, No. 88, Section 4, DingChow Road, Taipei, 11677, Taiwan

    Teng-Chiu Lin

  3. Earth Systems Research Center, University of New Hampshire, 8 College Road, Durham, NH, 03824, USA

    Matthew A. Vadeboncoeur

  4. College of Agriculture, Forestry and Natural Resource Management, University of Hawaii, Hilo, HI, 96720, USA

    Yiqing Li

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  1. Xiaofei Liu
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Correspondence to Teng-Chiu Lin.

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Liu, X., Lin, TC., Vadeboncoeur, M.A. et al. Root litter inputs exert greater influence over soil C than does aboveground litter in a subtropical natural forest. Plant Soil 444, 489–499 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-019-04294-5

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