Abstract
Background
Plants can directly affect litter decomposition by producing litter materials of different qualities. However, whether living plants have indirect effects on litter decomposition by affecting changes in forest microenvironments is presently unclear in plantation forests.
Methods
We addressed this issue by studying the decomposition of the leaf litter and fine roots of Chinese fir [Cunninghamia lanceolata (Lamb.) Hook.], a timber species widely planted in China, in 113 non-neighboring quadrats of varying basal area of the dominant plant species (i.e., Chinese fir) and distinct basal areas and species richness of regenerated woody plants (i.e., species other than Chinese fir) in a subtropical Chinese fir forest.
Results
Our results showed that fine roots decomposed significantly more rapidly than leaf litter possibly because fine roots were easier access to mineralized nutrients and microbes compared with leaf litter. Further analyses showed that leaf litter and fine root decomposition rates were significantly controlled by the plant community attributes. The decomposition of both leaf litter and fine roots was mainly controlled by woody species regenerated during stand development rather than by Chinese fir. Specifically, leaf litter and fine root decomposition rates decreased with increasing basal area of regenerated woody plants, possibly due to nutrient competition and/or reduced photodegradation.
Conclusions
This study provides empirical evidence that woody species regenerated during stand development play a certain role in determining litter decomposition rates through plant-soil interactions in Chinese fir plantations. Regenerated woody plants should be considered in future studies on soil carbon and nutrient cycling in plantation forest.
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Data availability
The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the first and corresponding author on reasonable request.
Code availability
The code analysed during the current study are available from the first and corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge the Huitong Experimental Station of Forest Ecology, CAS for providing the experimental site; Xiaojun Yu, Ke Huang for guidance for laboratory analysis; Xiuyong Zhang and Haifeng Huang for collecting litter materials; Yankuan Zhang, Bohan Chen and lots of students from Nanning Normal University for experimental assistant; Xuechao Zhao for his guidance with data analysis and data visualization. The first author Pan Yin gratefully acknowledges for the company and support of Jiao Wang. This work was jointly supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China [grant numbers 2021YFD2201301, 2021YFD2201303 and 2022YFF1303003] and the Natural Science Foundations of China [grant numbers 41877092, 41977092 and U22A20612]. Thanks to these funding surpports.
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Pan Yin: Investigation, Formal analysis, Data Curation, Visualization, Writing- Original draft. Kaiyan Zhai: Investigation, Data curation, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Weidong Zhang, Silong Wang: Funding acquisition, Supervision, Project administration, Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Qingpeng Yang: Funding acquisition, Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Longchi Chen, Xin Yu, Qingkui Wang, Björn Berg: Writing- Reviewing and Editing. Xin Guan, Zhangquan Zeng, Munan Zhu: Investigation, Data curation.
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Yin, P., Zhai, K., Zhang, W. et al. Regenerated woody plants influence litter decomposition more than the dominant timber species present in a Chinese fir plantation. Plant Soil 488, 573–588 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05994-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05994-9