Relative contributions of biotic and abiotic factors to the spatial variation of litter stock in a mature subtropical forest

作     者：Jing Wang Qingsong Yang Yang Qiao Deli Zhai Lifen Jiang Guopeng Liang Xiaoying Sun Ning Wei Xihua Wang Jianyang Xia 

作者机构：Zhejiang Tiantong Forest Ecosystem National Observation and Research Station&Research Center for Global Change and Ecological ForecastingShanghai Key Lab for Urban Ecological Processes and Eco-RestorationSchool of Ecological and Environmental SciencesEast China Normal UniversityShanghai 200062China State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal ResearchResearch Center for Global Change and Ecological ForecastingEast China Normal UniversityShanghai 200241China Key Laboratory of Economic Plants and BiotechnologyKunming Institute of BotanyChinese Academy of Sciences132 Lanhei RoadKunming 650201YunnanChina World Agroforestry CentreEast and Central Asia Office132 Lanhei RoadKunming 650201YunnanChina Center for Ecosystem Science and SocietyNorthern Arizona UniversityArizonaFlagstaffAZ 86011USA 

出 版 物：《Journal of Plant Ecology》 (植物生态学报（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2019年第12卷第4期

页      面：769-780页

核心收录：

学科分类：0710[理学-生物学] 0830[工学-环境科学与工程（可授工学、理学、农学学位）] 08[工学] 0829[工学-林业工程] 0901[农学-作物学] 0902[农学-园艺学] 0713[理学-生态学] 

基　　金：National Natural Science Foundation(31722009,41630528) Fok Ying-Tong Education Foundation for Young Teachers in the Higher Education Institutions of China(161016) the National 1000 Young Talents Program of China. 

主　　题：litter stock spatial variability subtropical forest topography 

摘      要：Aims Dead plant material(i.***.litter)is the major source of soil organic matter and thus plays a fundamental role in regulating soil carbon cycling in global forest ecosystems.The storage of litter is jointly determined by its production from plants and decomposition in a given environment.However,only few studies have explored the relative importance of en-vironmental(i.***.abiotic)and plant(i.***.biotic)factors in driving the spa-tial variation of litter mass.The objective of this study is to quantify the relative contributions of biotic and abiotic factors in affecting the spatial variation of aboveground litter stock in a mature subtropical forest.Methods The aboveground litter mass was sampled in 187 grids of a 20-hm forest dynamics plot in a subtropical broad-leave forest in eastern China.The contributions of environmental variables,topographical and species variables on litter stocks were quantified by the boosted regression tree analysis.Important Findings The mean aboveground litter stock was 367.5 g m^(−2) in the Tiantong dynamics forest plot across all the 187 grids.The litter stock ranged from 109.2 to 831.3 g m^(−2) and showed a large spatial variation with the coefficient of variance as 40.8%.The boosted regression tree analysis showed that slope elevation and soil moisture were the most influential variables on the spatial variation of litter stock.The relatively influence of abiotic factors(environmental and topographical factors)was 71.4%,which is larger than biotic factors(28.6%).Overall,these findings sug-gest that abiotic factors play a more important role than plants in driving the spatial variation of aboveground litter stock in the subtropical forest.Given that the global carbon-cycle models have been aiming to refine from the hundred kilometers to sub-kilometer scale,this study highlights the urgency of a better understanding of the spatial variation of litter stock on the fine scale.