Human activities are increasing the concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide ([CO2]) and tropospheric ozone ([O3]), potentially leading to changes in the quantity and chemical quality of leaf litter inputs to forest soils. Because the quality and quantity of labile and recalcitrant carbon (C) compounds influence forest productivity through changes in soil organic matter content, characteriz...

1. While it is well established that leaf litter decomposition is controlled by climate and substrate quality at broad spatial scales, conceptual frameworks that consider how local-scale factors affect litter decay in heterogeneous landscapes are generally lacking. 2. A critical challenge in disentangling the relative impacts of and interactions among local-scale factors is that these factors f...

Litter decomposition is a fundamental process for nutrient cycling but we have a limited understanding of this process in disturbed tropical forests. We studied litter decomposition over a 10-mo period in a seasonally dry Amazon forest in Mato Grosso, Brazil. The study plots (50 ha each) included unburned forest (UF), once-burned (BF1) and forest burned annually for 3 y (BF3). We measured under...

Global changes such as variations in plant net primary production are likely to drive shifts in leaf litterfall inputs to forest soils, but the effects of such changes on soil carbon (C) cycling and storage remain largely unknown, especially in C-rich tropical forest ecosystems. We initiated a leaf litterfall manipulation experiment in a tropical rain forest in Costa Rica to test the sensitivit...

Factors that negatively affect the quality of wildlife habitat are a major concern for conservation. Non-native species invasions, in particular, are perceived as a global threat to the quality of wildlife habitat. Recent evidence indicates that some changes to understory plant communities in northern temperate forests of North America, including invasions by 3 non-native plant species, are fac...

Quantification of the downed woody materials that comprise forest fuels has gained importance in Caribbean forest ecosystems due to the increasing incidence and severity of wildfires on island ecosystems. Because large-scale assessments of forest fuels have rarely been conducted for these ecosystems, forest fuels were assessed at 121 US Department of Agriculture forest service inventory plots o...

Following fertilization of forest plantations, high accumulations of nutrients in the forest floor creates the need to assess rates of forest floor decomposition and nutrient release. The study site was a 25-year old experimental loblolly pine plantation in the North Carolina Sandhills Region. Soluble and insoluble N, P, carbohydrate and phenol-tannin fractions were determined in foliage and li...

The fungal community of the forest floor was examined as the cause of previously reported increases in soil organic matter due to experimental N deposition in ecosystems producing predominantly high-lignin litter, and the opposite response in ecosystems producing low-lignin litter. The mechanism proposed to explain this phenomenon was that white-rot basidiomycetes are more important in the degr...

Global or regional environmental changes in climate or land use have been increasingly implied in shifts in boundaries (ecotones) between adjacent ecosystems such as beech or oak-dominated forests and forest-steppe ecotones that frequently co-occur near the southern range limits of deciduous forest biome in Europe. Yet, our ability to detect changes in biological communities across these ecosys...

To better understand the soil carbon dynamics and cycling in terrestrial ecosystems in response to environmental changes, we studied soil respiration, litter decomposition, and their relations to soil temperature and soil water content for 18-months (Aug. 2010-Jan. 2012) in three different-aged Pinus massoniana forests in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, China. Across the experimental period, t...