Fire is a major driver of ecosystem change and can disproportionately affect the cycling of different nutrients. Thus, a stoichiometric approach to investigate the relationships between nutrient availability and microbial resource use during decomposition is likely to provide insight into the effects of fire on ecosystem functioning. We conducted a field litter bag experiment to investigate the...

The anecic earthworm Lumbricus terrestris L. was kept in laboratory microcosms containing beech forest soil without litter, with beech leaf litter or with lime leaf litter. The structure of microfungal communities in soil, litter and fresh and aged (100 days) earthworm faeces was analysed using the washing and plating technique. The passage of mineral soil through the gut of L. terrestris affec...

The objective of study was to characterize the litter and quantify its effect on runoff during dry rainy season in a forest fragment Atlantic Forest. Six plots, three with without litter, were used assess runoff. Runoff open precipitation measured after rain events compared using Wilcoxon test. Litter collection performed it measure water retention capacity (WRC). WRC 3.75 mm kg-1 (5.44 mm) ran...

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide has the potential to alter leaf litter chemistry, potentially affecting decomposition and rates of carbon and nitrogen cycling in forest ecosystems. This study was conducted to determine whether growth under elevated atmospheric CO2 altered the quality and microbial decomposition of leaf litter of a widely distributed northern hardwood species at sites of low a...

Human-caused alterations of the carbon and nutrient cycles are expected to impact tropical ecosystems in the near future. Here we evaluated how a combined change in carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) availability affects soil and litter microbial respiration and litter decomposition in an undisturbed Amazonian rainforest in French Guiana. In a fully factorial C (as cellulose), N (as ur...

Litter quality and soil environmental conditions are well-studied drivers influencing decomposition rates, but the role played by disturbance legacy, such as fire history, in mediating these drivers is not well understood. Fire history may impact decomposition directly, through changes in soil conditions that impact microbial function, or indirectly, through shifts in plant community compositio...

Responses of understory plant diversity to nitrogen (N) additions were investigated in reforested forests of contrasting disturbance regimes in southern China from 2003 to 2008: disturbed forest (with harvesting of understory vegetation and litter) and rehabilitated forest (without harvesting). Experimental additions of N were administered as the following treatments: Control, 50 kg N ha(-1) yr...

KOSTEL-HUGHES, F., T. P. YOUNG, AND J. D. WEHR. (Louis Calder Center—Biological Field Station and Department of Biological Sciences, Fordham University, P.O. Box 887, Armonk, NY 10504). Effects of leaf litter depth on the emergence and seedling growth of deciduous forest tree species in relation to seed size. J. Torrey Bot. Soc. 132: 50–61. 2005.—Leaf litter has a major impact on soil microenvi...

Comparable sites \verc exam incd on Rahui Jsland. Lake Waikareiti, which is frct; of introduced mammals, and on the adjacent mainland, "which is not. The forest understorcy density'in NotllOfaglls fllscaf N. mem.iesii forest has been reduced on the mainland. In the mainland forest there arc fewer plants of Pscudopanax and Coprosma f;pp. and more p!ants of Dl'acophyllllln PY1'111/1idoleand Dic/....

Community-level physiological profiling (CLPP) analyses from very diverse environments are frequently used with the aim of characterizing the metabolic versatility of whole environmental bacterial communities. While the limitations of the methodology for the characterization of whole communities are well known, we propose that CLPP combined with high-throughput sequencing and qPCR can be utiliz...