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Warming effects and plant trait control on the early-decomposition in alpine snowbeds

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Abstract

Background and aims

In cold biomes, litter decomposition, which controls the nutrient availability for plants and the ecosystem carbon budget, is strongly influenced by climatic conditions. In this study, focused on the early litter decay within snowbed habitats, the magnitude of the short- and long-term influences of climate warming, the direction of the effects of warmer temperature and advanced snowmelt, and the control of microclimatic features and plant traits were compared.

Methods

Combining experimental warming and space-for-time substitution, mass loss and nutrient release of different plant functional types were estimated in different climatic treatments with the litter bag method.

Results

Plant functional types produced a larger variation in the early-decomposition compared to that produced by climatic treatments. Litter decay was not affected by warmer summer temperatures and reduced by advanced snowmelt. Structural-related plant traits exerted the major control over litter decomposition.

Conclusions

Long-term effects of climate warming, resulting from shifts in litter quality due to changes in the abundance of plant functional types, will likely have a stronger impact on plant litter decomposition than short-term variations in microclimatic features. This weaker response of litter decay to short-term climate changes may be partially due to the opposite influences of higher summer temperatures and advanced snowmelt time.

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Fig. 1
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Fig. 3

Abbreviations

ANOVA:

Analysis of variance

AS:

Advanced snowmelt

C:

Carbon

CliT:

Climatic treatment

Ctrl:

Control

LDMC:

Leaf dry matter content

N:

Nitrogen

OTC:

Open top field chamber

P:

Phosphorus

PFT:

Plant functional type

RDA:

Linear redundancy analysis

SFT:

Space-for-time

SLA:

Specific leaf area

TDR:

Time domain reflectometry

WT:

Warmer summer temperature

WT + AS:

Warmer summer temperature and advanced snowmelt

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Stelvio National Park for the authorization to fieldwork, M. Bartoli and D. Tintori for the help provided during the laboratory work, and R. Gerdol for the critical comments on the first version of the manuscript. We are also grateful to anonymous reviewers for useful suggestions and comments.

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  1. Department of Life Sciences, University of Parma, Parco Area delle Scienze 11/A, 43124, Parma, Italy

    Michele Carbognani, Alessandro Petraglia & Marcello Tomaselli

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  1. Michele Carbognani
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  2. Alessandro Petraglia
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  3. Marcello Tomaselli
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Correspondence to Michele Carbognani.

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Responsible Editor: Alfonso Escudero.

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Fig. A1

Nutrient concentration in decomposed litter of PFTs in the four climatic treatments (CliTs; Ctrl: control, WT: warmer summer temperature, AS: advanced snowmelt, WT+AS: warmer summer temperature and advanced snowmelt). Initial nutrient concentrations are showed by horizontal lines (thick and thin lines indicate mean and standard deviation, respectively). Asterisks refer to significant changes in nutrient concentration of PFTs in each CliT compared to initial values, whereas different letters indicate significant difference between CliTs for each PFT (based on Tukey HSD post-hoc test after data transformation) (DOC 672 kb)

Fig. A2

Regressions relating standardised decomposition to snowmelt time and moss carpet density. For each PFT mass loss data were divided by the minimum value of the corresponding CliT. Snowmelt time is expressed in day of the year, while moss carpet density in number of intercepts (sum of 2008 and 2009 values) from the point intercept system (on a 18x18 cm frame with 36 spatially homogeneous intercept points). Multiple linear mixed-effects regression model between standardised decomposition as response variable, snowmelt time and moss carpet density as fixed effects (the interaction term was excluded because non-significant), and plot and PFT as random effects showed significant and positive relationship of litter decomposition rate with the snowmelt time (F 1,6=6.74, P=0.036), whereas that with the moss carpet density was not significant (F 1,6=0.46, P=0.521) (DOC 299 kb)

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Carbognani, M., Petraglia, A. & Tomaselli, M. Warming effects and plant trait control on the early-decomposition in alpine snowbeds. Plant Soil 376, 277–290 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-013-1982-8

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