Litter decomposition is a key process for carbon and nutrient cycling in terrestrial
ecosystems and is mainly controlled by environmental conditions, substrate quantity
and quality as well as microbial community abundance and composition. In particular,
the effects of climate and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition on litter decomposition
and its temporal dynamics are of significant importance, since their effects might
change over the course of the decomposition process. Within the TeaComposition
initiative, we incubated Green and Rooibos teas at 524 sites across nine biomes. We
assessed how macroclimate and atmospheric inorganic N deposition under current and
predicted scenarios (RCP 2.6, RCP 8.5) might affect litter mass loss measured after 3
and 12 months. Our study shows that the early to mid-term mass loss at the global
scale was affected predominantly by litter quality (explaining 73% and 62% of the total
variance after 3 and 12 months, respectively) followed by climate and N deposition.
The effects of climate were not litter-specific and became increasingly significant as
decomposition progressed, with MAP explaining 2% and MAT 4% of the variation after
12 months of incubation. The effect of N deposition was litter-specific, and significant
only for 12-month decomposition of Rooibos tea at the global scale. However, in the
temperate biome where atmospheric N deposition rates are relatively high, the 12-
month mass loss of Green and Rooibos teas decreased significantly with increasing
N deposition, explaining 9.5% and 1.1% of the variance, respectively. The expected
changes in macroclimate and N deposition at the global scale by the end of this century
are estimated to increase the 12-month mass loss of easily decomposable litter by 1.1–
3.5% and of the more stable substrates by 3.8–10.6%, relative to current mass loss.
In contrast, expected changes in atmospheric N deposition will decrease the mid-term
mass loss of high-quality litter by 1.4–2.2% and that of low-quality litter by 0.9–1.5%
in the temperate biome. Our results suggest that projected increases in N deposition
may have the capacity to dampen the climate-driven increases in litter decomposition
depending on the biome and decomposition stage of substrate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:88562 |
| Date | 11 December 2023 |
| Creators | Kwon, TaeOh, Shibata, Hideaki, Kepfer-Rojas, Sebastian, K. Schmidt, Inger, S. Larsen, Klaus, Beier, Claus, Berg, Björn, Verheyen, Kris, Lamarque, Jean-Francois, Hagedorn, Frank, Eisenhauer, Nico, Djukic, Ika, Network, TeaComposition |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | 2624-893X, 10.3389/ffgc.2021.678480 |
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