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Effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in Chinese forests: a meta-analysis

Litter quality and climate have been presumed to be the dominant factors regulating litter decomposition rates on broad spatial scales. However, the role of soil fauna on litter decomposition is poorly understood, despite the fact that it could strongly influence decomposition by fragmentation and s...

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Autores principales: Zan, Peng, Mao, Zijun, Sun, Tao
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8757372/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35047237
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12747
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author Zan, Peng
Mao, Zijun
Sun, Tao
author_facet Zan, Peng
Mao, Zijun
Sun, Tao
author_sort Zan, Peng
collection PubMed
description Litter quality and climate have been presumed to be the dominant factors regulating litter decomposition rates on broad spatial scales. However, the role of soil fauna on litter decomposition is poorly understood, despite the fact that it could strongly influence decomposition by fragmentation and subsequent modification of the activities of microorganisms.In this study, we carried out a meta-analysis on the effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition rates in Chinese forests, ranging from boreal to tropical forests, based on data from 20 studies. The effects of climatic factors on decomposition rate were assessed by comparing the contribution of soil fauna to litter decomposition from studies carried out at different latitudes.The degree of influence of the soil fauna was in the order tropical (200%) > subtropical (47%) > temperate forest (28%). Comparing the effect size of soil fauna, it was found that when soil fauna was excluded, the decomposition rate, calculated using Olson’s equation, was most affected in tropical forest (−0.77), while the litter decomposition rate both subtropical (−0.36) and temperate forest (−0.19) were also suppressed to varying degrees (P < 0.001). These results highlight that soil fauna could promote litter decomposition to different extents. Using stepwise multiple linear regression, the effect size of the soil fauna was negatively correlated with the cellulose and nitrogen concentrations of the initial litter material. In Chinese forests, litter decomposition rates were reduced, on average, by 65% when soil fauna was excluded. The impact of soil fauna on decomposition was shown to be closely related to climate and litter quality.
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spelling pubmed-87573722022-01-18 Effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in Chinese forests: a meta-analysis Zan, Peng Mao, Zijun Sun, Tao PeerJ Ecology Litter quality and climate have been presumed to be the dominant factors regulating litter decomposition rates on broad spatial scales. However, the role of soil fauna on litter decomposition is poorly understood, despite the fact that it could strongly influence decomposition by fragmentation and subsequent modification of the activities of microorganisms.In this study, we carried out a meta-analysis on the effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition rates in Chinese forests, ranging from boreal to tropical forests, based on data from 20 studies. The effects of climatic factors on decomposition rate were assessed by comparing the contribution of soil fauna to litter decomposition from studies carried out at different latitudes.The degree of influence of the soil fauna was in the order tropical (200%) > subtropical (47%) > temperate forest (28%). Comparing the effect size of soil fauna, it was found that when soil fauna was excluded, the decomposition rate, calculated using Olson’s equation, was most affected in tropical forest (−0.77), while the litter decomposition rate both subtropical (−0.36) and temperate forest (−0.19) were also suppressed to varying degrees (P < 0.001). These results highlight that soil fauna could promote litter decomposition to different extents. Using stepwise multiple linear regression, the effect size of the soil fauna was negatively correlated with the cellulose and nitrogen concentrations of the initial litter material. In Chinese forests, litter decomposition rates were reduced, on average, by 65% when soil fauna was excluded. The impact of soil fauna on decomposition was shown to be closely related to climate and litter quality. PeerJ Inc. 2022-01-10 /pmc/articles/PMC8757372/ /pubmed/35047237 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12747 Text en ©2022 Zan et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Ecology
Zan, Peng
Mao, Zijun
Sun, Tao
Effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in Chinese forests: a meta-analysis
title Effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in Chinese forests: a meta-analysis
title_full Effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in Chinese forests: a meta-analysis
title_fullStr Effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in Chinese forests: a meta-analysis
title_full_unstemmed Effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in Chinese forests: a meta-analysis
title_short Effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in Chinese forests: a meta-analysis
title_sort effects of soil fauna on litter decomposition in chinese forests: a meta-analysis
topic Ecology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8757372/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35047237
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.12747
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