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Soil fauna effects on litter decomposition are better predicted by fauna communities within litterbags than by ambient soil fauna communities

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Abstract

Aims

Soil fauna is one of the major drivers of plant litter decomposition. This study aims to assess how soil fauna density and diversity may affect litter decomposition. Also, we assessed whether faunal communities inside the litterbags that are used to control the access of faunal groups or communities in ambient soils are better for predicting their effects on litter decomposition, given that soil fauna frequently move into and out of such litterbags.

Methods

To answer this question, we synthesized 5336 observations extracted from 46 publications to assess the effects of soil fauna communities, their density and diversity on the rate of litter decomposition (k) and litter mass loss.

Results

Results showed that (1) the presence of soil fauna significantly increased k by an average of 33.0% and that the effects were mainly controlled by initial litter concentrations of phosphorus and magnesium, (2) the density and diversity of soil fauna in litterbags significantly affected k and/or mass loss, but ambient communities had limited effects, and (3) the effects of soil fauna in litterbags on k were most significant during the early stages of decomposition (0 − 30% mass loss).

Conclusions

Our study clearly showed that litterbag communities were better for predicting the effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition, and that their effects were most significant during the early stages of decomposition. These results improve our ability to estimate the contribution of soil fauna in liter decomposition and the associated carbon and nutrient cycling.

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Data availability

Raw data used in the study were deposited in figshare with a DOI (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21939557.v1).

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Funding

Y.P. was founded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32201342) and Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (2022J01642). K.Y. was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31922052 and 32271633). F.W. was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32171641). J.P. and G.P. were funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science grant PID2019-110521 GB-I00, the Catalan government grant SGR2017-1005, and the Fundación Ramón Areces grant CIVP20A6621.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory for Humid Subtropical Eco-Geographical Processes of the Ministry of Education, School of Geographical Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Funan Road 8, Shangjie Town, Minhou County, Fuzhou, 350117, Fujian, China

    Yan Peng, Kai Yue & Fuzhong Wu

  2. Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, DK-1958, Frederiksberg C, Denmark

    Lars Vesterdal

  3. CREAF, E08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, Spain

    Josep Peñuelas & Guille Peguero

  4. CSIC, Global Ecology Unit, CREAF-CSIC-UAB, E08193 Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, Spain

    Josep Peñuelas & Guille Peguero

  5. State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Silviculture, Zhejiang A&F University, Lin’an, 311300, China

    Qiqian Wu

  6. Institute of Tropical Biodiversity and Sustainable Development, University Malaysia Terengganu, Kuala Nerus, 21030, Terengganu, Malaysia

    Petr Heděnec

Authors
  1. Yan Peng
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  2. Lars Vesterdal
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  3. Josep Peñuelas
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  4. Guille Peguero
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  5. Qiqian Wu
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  6. Petr Heděnec
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  7. Kai Yue
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  8. Fuzhong Wu
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Contributions

Y.P., and F.W. conceived the study. Y.P., Q.W., P.H., and K.Y. collected raw data. Y.P., K.Y., and F.W. performed the statistical analyses. Y.P., L.V., J.P., G.P., Q.W., P.H., K.Y., and F.W. wrote the first draft and contributed to thorough revisions of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fuzhong Wu.

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Responsible Editor: Guiyao Zhou.

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Peng, Y., Vesterdal, L., Peñuelas, J. et al. Soil fauna effects on litter decomposition are better predicted by fauna communities within litterbags than by ambient soil fauna communities. Plant Soil 487, 49–59 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05902-1

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