Alpine Litter Humification and Its Response to Reduced Snow Cover: Can More Carbon Be Sequestered in Soils?

While carbon loss from plant litter is well understood, the mechanisms by which this sequestered in decomposing substrate remains unclear. Here we assessed humus accumulations five foliar litters during four years of decomposition and their responses to reduced snow cover an alpine forest. In contrast traditional understanding (i.e., three-stage model), found that fresh had a high content (8–13% across species), consistently increased such increase primarily depended on accumulation humic acid. Further, decreased at early stages but it late stages. These results suggested humification simultaneously occurred with decay, process was more sensitive changing climate seasonally snow-covered ecosystems, as previously expected.