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Abstract

Through litter decomposition enormous amounts of carbon is emitted to the atmosphere. Numerous large-scale decomposition experiments have been conducted focusing on this fundamental soil process in order to understand the controls on the terrestrial carbon transfer to the atmosphere. However, previous studies were mostly based on site-specific litter and methodologies, adding major uncertainty to syntheses, comparisons and meta-analyses across different experiments and sites. In the TeaComposition initiative, the potential litter decomposition is investigated by using standardized substrates (Rooibos and Green tea) for comparison of litter mass loss at 336 sites (ranging from -9 to +26 degrees C MAT and from 60 to 3113 mm MAP) across different ecosystems. In this study we tested the effect of climate (temperature and moisture), litter type and land-use on early stage decomposition (3 months) across nine biomes. We show that litter quality was the predominant controlling factor in early stage litter decomposition, which explained about 65% of the variability in litter decomposition at a global scale. The effect of climate, on the other hand, was not litter specific and explained

Keywords

Tea bag; Green tea; Rooibos tea; Carbon turnover; TeaComposition initiative

Published in

Science of the Total Environment
2018, volume: 628-629, pages: 1369-1394

SLU Authors

Global goals (SDG)

SDG13 Climate action

UKÄ Subject classification

Botany
Forest Science
Ecology

Publication identifier

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.01.012

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/94832