Wild ginger (Hedychium gardnerianum) is a tall rhizomatous herb that invades forests and shrubland fragments in northern New Zealand. In order to determine the impacts of this invasive weed on forest processes, comparisons of conifer-broadleaved forest patches with different densities of ginger were made at Opononi and Whangarei in Northland. Soil properties, vegetation structure, floristics, a...

We estimated carbon allocation to belowground processes in unfertilized and fertilized red pine (Pinus resinosa Ait.) plantations in northern Wisconsin to determine how soil fertility affects belowground allocation patterns. We used soil CO(2) efflux and litterfall measurements to estimate total belowground carbon allocation (root production and root respiration) by the carbon balance method, e...

Like other N-fixing invasive species in Hawaii, Falcataria moluccana dramatically alters forest structure, litterfall quality and quantity, and nutrient dynamics. We hypothesized that these biogeochemical changes would also affect the soil microbial community and the extracellular enzymes responsible for carbon and nutrient mineralization. Across three sites differing in substrate texture and a...

Organic matter dynamics were studied in five streams at Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory. Three of these streams drained logged watersheds, and two drained reference deciduous forest watersheds. Litter inputs to the streams draining disturbed watersheds were significantly lower than to reference streams. Additionally, while undisturbed litterfall consisted primarily of relatively refractory leaf s...

[1] A large increase in near-infrared (NIR) reflectance of Amazon forests during the light-rich dry season and a corresponding decrease during the light-poor wet season has been observed in satellite measurements. This increase has been variously interpreted as seasonal change in leaf area resulting from net leaf flushing in the dry season or net leaf abscission in the wet season, enhanced phot...

Litterfall is an important part of the process nutrient circulation and energy flow in forest ecosystems. Mountain forests are strongly eroded by running water that surface soil thinner, terrain complex diverse. They more sensitive to climate change, which will affect ecological processes carbon sink functions Taking Lushan as example, we studied dynamic characteristics litterfall components, s...

Abstract Backgrounds and aims Litter protects the underlying soil, depending on litterfall decomposition, but dynamics of standing litter stock in agroforestry systems remain poorly understood. We aimed to unravel effects quality, temporal patterns, microclimate, a possible home-field advantage (HFA) across land-use gradient. Methods quantified litterfall, stock, microclimate during year (remna...

This paper is a review of recent (< or =10 years) information on litterfall, standing stock of benthic organic matter, breakdown rates, and fungal colonization of organic matter in streams. In some cases, recent research reinforces the findings of classic reference papers. In other cases, the additional knowledge provided by recent research introduces a higher variation in the processes analyze...