Influence of rhizosphere activity on litter decomposition in subtropical forest: implications of estimating soil organic matter contributions to soil respiration

Abstract Litter decomposition plays an important role in the carbon cycle and is affected by many factors forest ecosystems. This study aimed to quantify rhizosphere priming effect on litter subtropical southwestern China. A experiment including control trenching treatments was conducted using bag method, rate calculated dry mass loss. Trenching did not change soil temperature, but increased water content 14.5%. In this study, interaction of temperature controlled rate, explained 87.4 85.5% variation treatments, respectively. Considering changes environmental due trenching, rates were corrected regression models. After correction, 32.47 ± 3.15 25.71 2.72% year –1 , respectively, 2-year period. Rhizosphere activity significantly primed 26.3%. Our suggested a forest. Combining previous results, we estimated contributions total organic matter (SOM) decomposition, root respiration forest, our new method estimating components provided basic theory for SOM research.