Disentangling drivers of litter decomposition in a multi-continent network of tree diversity experiments

Ellen Desie; Juan Zuo; Kris Verheyen; Ika Djukic; Koenraad Van Meerbeek; Harald Auge; Nadia Barsoum; Christel Baum; Helge Bruelheide; Nico Eisenhauer; Heike Feldhaar; Olga Ferlian; Dominique Gravel; Hervé Jactel; Inger Kappel Schmidt; Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas; Céline Meredieu; Simone Mereu; Christian Messier; Lourdes Morillas; Charles Nock; Alain Paquette; Quentin Ponette; Peter B. Reich; Javier Roales; Michael Scherer-Lorenzen; Steffen Seitz; Anja Schmidt; Artur Stefanski; Stefan Trogisch; Inge van Halder; Martin Weih; Laura J. Williams; Bo Yang; Bart Muys

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159717

Disentangling drivers of litter decomposition in a multi-continent network of tree diversity experiments

Ellen Desie
, Juan Zuo
, Kris Verheyen
, Ika Djukic
, Koenraad Van Meerbeek
, Harald Auge
, Nadia Barsoum
, Christel Baum
, Helge Bruelheide
, Nico Eisenhauer
, Heike Feldhaar
, Olga Ferlian
, Dominique Gravel
, Hervé Jactel
, Inger Kappel Schmidt
, Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas
, Céline Meredieu
, Simone Mereu
, Christian Messier
, Lourdes Morillas

Charles Nock, Alain Paquette, Quentin Ponette, Peter B. Reich, Javier Roales, Michael Scherer-Lorenzen, Steffen Seitz, Anja Schmidt, Artur Stefanski, Stefan Trogisch, Inge van Halder, Martin Weih, Laura J. Williams, Bo Yang, Bart Muys

Forest Resources

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

Litter decomposition is a key ecosystem function in forests and varies in response to a range of climatic, edaphic, and local stand characteristics. Disentangling the relative contribution of these factors is challenging, especially along large environmental gradients. In particular, knowledge of the effect of management options, such as tree planting density and species composition, on litter decomposition would be highly valuable in forestry. In this study, we made use of 15 tree diversity experiments spread over eight countries and three continents within the global TreeDivNet network. We evaluated the effects of overstory composition (tree identity, species/mixture composition and species richness), plantation conditions (density and age), and climate (temperature and precipitation) on mass loss (after 3 months and 1 year) of two standardized litters: high-quality green tea and low-quality rooibos tea. Across continents, we found that early-stage decomposition of the low-quality rooibos tea was influenced locally by overstory tree identity. Mass loss of rooibos litter was higher under young gymnosperm overstories compared to angiosperm overstories, but this trend reversed with age of the experiment. Tree species richness did not influence decomposition and explained almost no variation in our multi-continent dataset. Hence, in the young plantations of our study, overstory composition effects on decomposition were mainly driven by tree species identity on decomposer communities and forest microclimates. After 12 months of incubation, mass loss of the high-quality green tea litter was mainly influenced by temperature whereas the low-quality rooibos tea litter decomposition showed stronger relationships with overstory composition and stand age. Our findings highlight that decomposition dynamics are not only affected by climate but also by management options, via litter quality of the identity of planted trees but also by overstory composition and structure.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	159717
Journal	Science of the Total Environment
Volume	857
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159717
State	Published - Jan 20 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful to UNILEVER for sponsoring the Lipton tea bags and to ILTER Initiative Grant for supporting the work within the TeaComposition Initiative. We thank Stef Haesen for his assistance with the climate data and Ilié Storms for his feedback on manuscript. JZ worked on this paper with a postdoc grant from the Federal Belgian Science Office (Belspo) in the framework of the Forbio Climate project. NE and OF acknowledge support from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation (FZT 118, 202548816). HB, ST, BY, StS and HF acknowledge support from the German Research Foundation (DFG FOR 891/3). We acknowledge the support of Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR), in the University framework of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). MW acknowledges funding by the Swedish Energy Agency (36654-1, 36654-2, 36654-3project DiPTiCC (16-CE32-0003). MSL acknowledges support and site maintenance of the BIOTREE experiment by the Federal Forestry Office Thüringer Wald — Bundesforstamt Thüringer Wald, Bad Salzungen. We also thank Martin Mörsdorf (Freiburg) for assistance in field work.

Funding Information:
We are grateful to UNILEVER for sponsoring the Lipton tea bags and to ILTER Initiative Grant for supporting the work within the TeaComposition Initiative. We thank Stef Haesen for his assistance with the climate data and Ilié Storms for his feedback on manuscript. JZ worked on this paper with a postdoc grant from the Federal Belgian Science Office (Belspo) in the framework of the Forbio Climate project. NE and OF acknowledge support from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation ( FZT 118 , 202548816 ). HB, ST, BY, StS and HF acknowledge support from the German Research Foundation ( DFG FOR 891/3 ). We acknowledge the support of Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR), in the University framework of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). MW acknowledges funding by the Swedish Energy Agency ( 36654-1 , 36654-2 , 36654-3 project DiPTiCC ( 16-CE32-0003 ). MSL acknowledges support and site maintenance of the BIOTREE experiment by the Federal Forestry Office Thüringer Wald — Bundesforstamt Thüringer Wald, Bad Salzungen. We also thank Martin Mörsdorf (Freiburg) for assistance in field work.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 15 Life on Land

Keywords

Biodiversity
Biogeochemical cycle
Carbon turnover
Decomposition
Forest
Mass loss
Tea bag initiative
Tree communities
Tree species richness
TreeDivNet

Publisher link

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159717

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Desie, E., Zuo, J., Verheyen, K., Djukic, I., Van Meerbeek, K., Auge, H., Barsoum, N., Baum, C., Bruelheide, H., Eisenhauer, N., Feldhaar, H., Ferlian, O., Gravel, D., Jactel, H., Schmidt, I. K., Kepfer-Rojas, S., Meredieu, C., Mereu, S., Messier, C., ... Muys, B. (2023). Disentangling drivers of litter decomposition in a multi-continent network of tree diversity experiments. Science of the Total Environment, 857, Article 159717. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159717

Desie, E, Zuo, J, Verheyen, K, Djukic, I, Van Meerbeek, K, Auge, H, Barsoum, N, Baum, C, Bruelheide, H, Eisenhauer, N, Feldhaar, H, Ferlian, O, Gravel, D, Jactel, H, Schmidt, IK, Kepfer-Rojas, S, Meredieu, C, Mereu, S, Messier, C, Morillas, L, Nock, C, Paquette, A, Ponette, Q, Reich, PB, Roales, J, Scherer-Lorenzen, M, Seitz, S, Schmidt, A, Stefanski, A, Trogisch, S, Halder, IV, Weih, M, Williams, LJ, Yang, B & Muys, B 2023, 'Disentangling drivers of litter decomposition in a multi-continent network of tree diversity experiments', Science of the Total Environment, vol. 857, 159717. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159717

@article{e1c24cf3b42b4700bfe6feb982726648,

title = "Disentangling drivers of litter decomposition in a multi-continent network of tree diversity experiments",

abstract = "Litter decomposition is a key ecosystem function in forests and varies in response to a range of climatic, edaphic, and local stand characteristics. Disentangling the relative contribution of these factors is challenging, especially along large environmental gradients. In particular, knowledge of the effect of management options, such as tree planting density and species composition, on litter decomposition would be highly valuable in forestry. In this study, we made use of 15 tree diversity experiments spread over eight countries and three continents within the global TreeDivNet network. We evaluated the effects of overstory composition (tree identity, species/mixture composition and species richness), plantation conditions (density and age), and climate (temperature and precipitation) on mass loss (after 3 months and 1 year) of two standardized litters: high-quality green tea and low-quality rooibos tea. Across continents, we found that early-stage decomposition of the low-quality rooibos tea was influenced locally by overstory tree identity. Mass loss of rooibos litter was higher under young gymnosperm overstories compared to angiosperm overstories, but this trend reversed with age of the experiment. Tree species richness did not influence decomposition and explained almost no variation in our multi-continent dataset. Hence, in the young plantations of our study, overstory composition effects on decomposition were mainly driven by tree species identity on decomposer communities and forest microclimates. After 12 months of incubation, mass loss of the high-quality green tea litter was mainly influenced by temperature whereas the low-quality rooibos tea litter decomposition showed stronger relationships with overstory composition and stand age. Our findings highlight that decomposition dynamics are not only affected by climate but also by management options, via litter quality of the identity of planted trees but also by overstory composition and structure.",

keywords = "Biodiversity, Biogeochemical cycle, Carbon turnover, Decomposition, Forest, Mass loss, Tea bag initiative, Tree communities, Tree species richness, TreeDivNet",

author = "Ellen Desie and Juan Zuo and Kris Verheyen and Ika Djukic and \{Van Meerbeek\}, Koenraad and Harald Auge and Nadia Barsoum and Christel Baum and Helge Bruelheide and Nico Eisenhauer and Heike Feldhaar and Olga Ferlian and Dominique Gravel and Herv{\'e} Jactel and Schmidt, \{Inger Kappel\} and Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas and C{\'e}line Meredieu and Simone Mereu and Christian Messier and Lourdes Morillas and Charles Nock and Alain Paquette and Quentin Ponette and Reich, \{Peter B.\} and Javier Roales and Michael Scherer-Lorenzen and Steffen Seitz and Anja Schmidt and Artur Stefanski and Stefan Trogisch and Halder, \{Inge van\} and Martin Weih and Williams, \{Laura J.\} and Bo Yang and Bart Muys",

note = "Funding Information: We are grateful to UNILEVER for sponsoring the Lipton tea bags and to ILTER Initiative Grant for supporting the work within the TeaComposition Initiative. We thank Stef Haesen for his assistance with the climate data and Ili{\'e} Storms for his feedback on manuscript. JZ worked on this paper with a postdoc grant from the Federal Belgian Science Office (Belspo) in the framework of the Forbio Climate project. NE and OF acknowledge support from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation (FZT 118, 202548816). HB, ST, BY, StS and HF acknowledge support from the German Research Foundation (DFG FOR 891/3). We acknowledge the support of Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR), in the University framework of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). MW acknowledges funding by the Swedish Energy Agency (36654-1, 36654-2, 36654-3project DiPTiCC (16-CE32-0003). MSL acknowledges support and site maintenance of the BIOTREE experiment by the Federal Forestry Office Th{\"u}ringer Wald — Bundesforstamt Th{\"u}ringer Wald, Bad Salzungen. We also thank Martin M{\"o}rsdorf (Freiburg) for assistance in field work. Funding Information: We are grateful to UNILEVER for sponsoring the Lipton tea bags and to ILTER Initiative Grant for supporting the work within the TeaComposition Initiative. We thank Stef Haesen for his assistance with the climate data and Ili{\'e} Storms for his feedback on manuscript. JZ worked on this paper with a postdoc grant from the Federal Belgian Science Office (Belspo) in the framework of the Forbio Climate project. NE and OF acknowledge support from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation ( FZT 118 , 202548816 ). HB, ST, BY, StS and HF acknowledge support from the German Research Foundation ( DFG FOR 891/3 ). We acknowledge the support of Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR), in the University framework of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). MW acknowledges funding by the Swedish Energy Agency ( 36654-1 , 36654-2 , 36654-3 project DiPTiCC ( 16-CE32-0003 ). MSL acknowledges support and site maintenance of the BIOTREE experiment by the Federal Forestry Office Th{\"u}ringer Wald — Bundesforstamt Th{\"u}ringer Wald, Bad Salzungen. We also thank Martin M{\"o}rsdorf (Freiburg) for assistance in field work. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022",

year = "2023",

month = jan,

day = "20",

doi = "10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159717",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "857",

journal = "Science of the Total Environment",

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TY - JOUR

T1 - Disentangling drivers of litter decomposition in a multi-continent network of tree diversity experiments

AU - Desie, Ellen

AU - Zuo, Juan

AU - Verheyen, Kris

AU - Djukic, Ika

AU - Van Meerbeek, Koenraad

AU - Auge, Harald

AU - Barsoum, Nadia

AU - Baum, Christel

AU - Bruelheide, Helge

AU - Eisenhauer, Nico

AU - Feldhaar, Heike

AU - Ferlian, Olga

AU - Gravel, Dominique

AU - Jactel, Hervé

AU - Schmidt, Inger Kappel

AU - Kepfer-Rojas, Sebastian

AU - Meredieu, Céline

AU - Mereu, Simone

AU - Messier, Christian

AU - Morillas, Lourdes

AU - Nock, Charles

AU - Paquette, Alain

AU - Ponette, Quentin

AU - Reich, Peter B.

AU - Roales, Javier

AU - Scherer-Lorenzen, Michael

AU - Seitz, Steffen

AU - Schmidt, Anja

AU - Stefanski, Artur

AU - Trogisch, Stefan

AU - Halder, Inge van

AU - Weih, Martin

AU - Williams, Laura J.

AU - Yang, Bo

AU - Muys, Bart

N1 - Funding Information: We are grateful to UNILEVER for sponsoring the Lipton tea bags and to ILTER Initiative Grant for supporting the work within the TeaComposition Initiative. We thank Stef Haesen for his assistance with the climate data and Ilié Storms for his feedback on manuscript. JZ worked on this paper with a postdoc grant from the Federal Belgian Science Office (Belspo) in the framework of the Forbio Climate project. NE and OF acknowledge support from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation (FZT 118, 202548816). HB, ST, BY, StS and HF acknowledge support from the German Research Foundation (DFG FOR 891/3). We acknowledge the support of Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR), in the University framework of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). MW acknowledges funding by the Swedish Energy Agency (36654-1, 36654-2, 36654-3project DiPTiCC (16-CE32-0003). MSL acknowledges support and site maintenance of the BIOTREE experiment by the Federal Forestry Office Thüringer Wald — Bundesforstamt Thüringer Wald, Bad Salzungen. We also thank Martin Mörsdorf (Freiburg) for assistance in field work. Funding Information: We are grateful to UNILEVER for sponsoring the Lipton tea bags and to ILTER Initiative Grant for supporting the work within the TeaComposition Initiative. We thank Stef Haesen for his assistance with the climate data and Ilié Storms for his feedback on manuscript. JZ worked on this paper with a postdoc grant from the Federal Belgian Science Office (Belspo) in the framework of the Forbio Climate project. NE and OF acknowledge support from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation ( FZT 118 , 202548816 ). HB, ST, BY, StS and HF acknowledge support from the German Research Foundation ( DFG FOR 891/3 ). We acknowledge the support of Agence nationale de la recherche (ANR), in the University framework of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS). MW acknowledges funding by the Swedish Energy Agency ( 36654-1 , 36654-2 , 36654-3 project DiPTiCC ( 16-CE32-0003 ). MSL acknowledges support and site maintenance of the BIOTREE experiment by the Federal Forestry Office Thüringer Wald — Bundesforstamt Thüringer Wald, Bad Salzungen. We also thank Martin Mörsdorf (Freiburg) for assistance in field work. Publisher Copyright: © 2022

PY - 2023/1/20

Y1 - 2023/1/20

N2 - Litter decomposition is a key ecosystem function in forests and varies in response to a range of climatic, edaphic, and local stand characteristics. Disentangling the relative contribution of these factors is challenging, especially along large environmental gradients. In particular, knowledge of the effect of management options, such as tree planting density and species composition, on litter decomposition would be highly valuable in forestry. In this study, we made use of 15 tree diversity experiments spread over eight countries and three continents within the global TreeDivNet network. We evaluated the effects of overstory composition (tree identity, species/mixture composition and species richness), plantation conditions (density and age), and climate (temperature and precipitation) on mass loss (after 3 months and 1 year) of two standardized litters: high-quality green tea and low-quality rooibos tea. Across continents, we found that early-stage decomposition of the low-quality rooibos tea was influenced locally by overstory tree identity. Mass loss of rooibos litter was higher under young gymnosperm overstories compared to angiosperm overstories, but this trend reversed with age of the experiment. Tree species richness did not influence decomposition and explained almost no variation in our multi-continent dataset. Hence, in the young plantations of our study, overstory composition effects on decomposition were mainly driven by tree species identity on decomposer communities and forest microclimates. After 12 months of incubation, mass loss of the high-quality green tea litter was mainly influenced by temperature whereas the low-quality rooibos tea litter decomposition showed stronger relationships with overstory composition and stand age. Our findings highlight that decomposition dynamics are not only affected by climate but also by management options, via litter quality of the identity of planted trees but also by overstory composition and structure.

AB - Litter decomposition is a key ecosystem function in forests and varies in response to a range of climatic, edaphic, and local stand characteristics. Disentangling the relative contribution of these factors is challenging, especially along large environmental gradients. In particular, knowledge of the effect of management options, such as tree planting density and species composition, on litter decomposition would be highly valuable in forestry. In this study, we made use of 15 tree diversity experiments spread over eight countries and three continents within the global TreeDivNet network. We evaluated the effects of overstory composition (tree identity, species/mixture composition and species richness), plantation conditions (density and age), and climate (temperature and precipitation) on mass loss (after 3 months and 1 year) of two standardized litters: high-quality green tea and low-quality rooibos tea. Across continents, we found that early-stage decomposition of the low-quality rooibos tea was influenced locally by overstory tree identity. Mass loss of rooibos litter was higher under young gymnosperm overstories compared to angiosperm overstories, but this trend reversed with age of the experiment. Tree species richness did not influence decomposition and explained almost no variation in our multi-continent dataset. Hence, in the young plantations of our study, overstory composition effects on decomposition were mainly driven by tree species identity on decomposer communities and forest microclimates. After 12 months of incubation, mass loss of the high-quality green tea litter was mainly influenced by temperature whereas the low-quality rooibos tea litter decomposition showed stronger relationships with overstory composition and stand age. Our findings highlight that decomposition dynamics are not only affected by climate but also by management options, via litter quality of the identity of planted trees but also by overstory composition and structure.

KW - Biodiversity

KW - Biogeochemical cycle

KW - Carbon turnover

KW - Decomposition

KW - Forest

KW - Mass loss

KW - Tea bag initiative

KW - Tree communities

KW - Tree species richness

KW - TreeDivNet

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85142941006

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85142941006#tab=citedBy

U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159717

DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2022.159717

M3 - Article

C2 - 36302436

AN - SCOPUS:85142941006

SN - 0048-9697

VL - 857

JO - Science of the Total Environment

JF - Science of the Total Environment

M1 - 159717

ER -

Disentangling drivers of litter decomposition in a multi-continent network of tree diversity experiments

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

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