Sammanfattning

Biological decomposition and wildfire are two predominant and alternative processes that can mineralize organic C in forest litter. Currently, the relationships between decomposition and fire are still poorly understood. We provide an empirical test of the hypothesized decoupling of surface litter bed decomposability and flammability, and the underlying traits and trait spectra. We employed a 41-species set of gymnosperms of very broad evolutionary and geographic spread, because of the wide range of (absent to frequent) fire regimes they are associated with. We found that the interspecific pattern of mass loss proportions in a "common garden" decomposition experiment was not correlated with any of the flammability parameters and an RDA analysis also showed that the decomposability and flammability of leaf litter in litter layers were decoupled across species. This decoupling originates from the former depending mostly on size and shape spectrum traits and the latter on PES traits and those trait spectra being virtually uncorrelated. Synthesis: Our results show that, indeed, leaf litter decomposability and flammability parameters are decoupled across species, and this decoupling can be explained by their different drivers in terms of trait spectra: chemical traits for decomposability and size-shape traits for litter layer flammability.

Nyckelord

biogeochemical cycling; decomposition; fire ecology; flammability; leaf litter quality; leaf shape; plant functional traits

Publicerad i

Journal of Ecology
2023, Volym: 111, nummer: 4, sidor: 761-772
Utgivare: WILEY

SLU författare

• Krab, Eveline

  • Institutionen för mark och miljö, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

UKÄ forskningsämne

Ekologi


Publikationens identifierare

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14033

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/120424