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Changes in the decomposer community when converting spruce monocultures to mixed spruce/beech stands

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Abstract

The impact of the admixture of beech in spruce monocultures on structure and function of the decomposer community was studies in the Ore mountains (Saxony, Germany) on Dystric Cambisols between 2000 and 2002. The study sites represented four stages of forest conversion from a mature spruce stand to a mature spruce/beech stand. There, the functional profile of the nematodes, enchytraeids, lumbricids, and dipterans was analysed on the basis of ecological guilds, and their metabolic equivalences were calculated to characterize the decomposition potential of the invertebrate decomposer community. Because of the acidic parent soil the coenoses at all study sites were dominated by the enchytraeids with increasing importance of lumbricids and dipterans in progress of forest conversion. Gradual changes with rising coverage of beech culminated in intense differences of entire biomasses and metabolic equivalences between the mature stands, indicating a higher decomposition potential of the invertebrate decomposer community by the admixture of beeches in spruce forests. The quality of the beech litter is likely to be the important factors for these changes. To prove this assumption further investigations of the saprovore food chain are necessary, taking microbial parameters into account.

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  1. TU Dresden, Institut für Forstbotanik und Forstzoologie, Postfach 11 17, 01735, Tharandt, Germany

    Michael Elmer, Martin La France, Gisela Förster & Mechthild Roth

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  1. Michael Elmer
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  2. Martin La France
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  3. Gisela Förster
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  4. Mechthild Roth
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Elmer, M., La France, M., Förster, G. et al. Changes in the decomposer community when converting spruce monocultures to mixed spruce/beech stands. Plant Soil 264, 97–109 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1023/B:PLSO.0000047776.86805.0f

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