Importance of overstorey attributes for understorey litter production and nutrient cycling in European forests  

作　　者：Dries Landuyt Evy Ampoorter Cristina CBastias Raquel Benavides Sandra Müller Michael Scherer-Lorenzen Fernando Valladares Safaa Wasof Kris Verheyen 

机构地区：[1]Forest&Nature Lab,Department of Environment,Ghent University,Ghent,Belgium [2]LINCGlobal,Department of Biogeography and Global Change,National Museum of Natural Science-CSIC,Madrid,Spain [3]Faculty of Biology,Geobotany,University of Freiburg,Freiburg im Breisgau,Germany.

出　　处：《Forest Ecosystems》2020年第4期591-601,共11页森林生态系统（英文版）

基　　金：the framework of the FunDivEUROPE project and has received funding from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme(FP7/2007–2013)under grant agreement n°265171.Dries Landuyt was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship of the Research Foundation-Flanders(FWO).Kris Verheyen was supported by the ERC Consolidator Grant 614839 that is linked with the project PASTFORWARD.

摘　　要：Background:In contrast with the negligible contribution of the forest understorey to the total aboveground phytobiomass of a forest,its share in annual litter production and nutrient cycling may be more important.Whether and how this functional role of the understorey differs across forest types and depends upon overstorey characteristics remains to be investigated.Methods:We sampled 209 plots of the FunDivEUROPE Exploratory Platform,a network of study plots covering local gradients of tree diversity spread over six contrasting forest types in Europe.To estimate the relative contribution of the understorey to carbon and nutrient cycling,we sampled non-lignified aboveground understorey biomass and overstorey leaf litterfall in all plots.Understorey samples were analysed for C,N and P concentrations,overstorey leaf litterfall for C and N concentrations.We additionally quantified a set of overstorey attributes,including species richness,proportion of evergreen species,light availability(representing crown density)and litter quality,and investigated whether they drive the understorey’s contribution to carbon and nutrient cycling.Results and conclusions:Overstorey litter production and nutrient stocks in litterfall clearly exceeded the contribution of the understorey for all forest types,and the share of the understorey was higher in forests at the extremes of the climatic gradient.In most of the investigated forest types,it was mainly light availability that determined the contribution of the understorey to yearly carbon and nutrient cycling.Overstorey species richness did not affect the contribution of the understorey to carbon and nutrient cycling in any of the investigated forest types.

关 键 词：FunDivEUROPE Nutrient cycling Litter production UNDERSTOREY Overstorey Tree species richness Light availability Litter quality Proportion evergreen tree species 

分 类 号：S718.5[农业科学—林学]