Litter Breakdown and Microbial Succession on Two Submerged Leaf Species in a Small Forested Stream

Microbial succession during leaf breakdown was investigated in a small forested stream in west-central Georgia, USA, using multiple culture-independent techniques. Red maple (Acer rubrum) and water oak (Quercus nigra) leaf litter were incubated in situ for 128 days, and litter breakdown was quantified by ash-free dry mass (AFDM) method and microbial assemblage composition using phospholipid fatty acid analysis (PLFA), ribosomal intergenic spacer analysis (RISA), denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE), and bar-coded next-generation sequencing of 16S rRNA gene amplicons. Leaf breakdown was faster for red maple than water oak. PLFA revealed a significant time effect on microbial lipid profiles for both leaf species. Microbial assemblages on maple contained a higher relative abundance of bacterial lipids than oak, and oak microbial assemblages contained higher relative abundance of fungal lipids than maple. RISA showed that incubation time was more important in structuring bacterial assemblages than leaf physicochemistry. DGGE profiles revealed high variability in bacterial assemblages over time, and sequencing of DGGE-resolved amplicons indicated several taxa present on degrading litter. Next-generation sequencing revealed temporal shifts in dominant taxa within the phylum Proteobacteria, whereas γ-Proteobacteria dominated pre-immersion and α- and β-Proteobacteria dominated after 1 month of instream incubation; the latter groups contain taxa that are predicted to be capable of using organic material to fuel further breakdown. Our results suggest that incubation time is more important than leaf species physicochemistry in influencing leaf litter microbial assemblage composition, and indicate the need for investigation into seasonal and temporal dynamics of leaf litter microbial assemblage succession.     

Species-specific characteristics of trees can determine the litter macroinvertebrate community and decomposition process below their canopies

This paper tests whether individual trees in a mature forest stand influence the process of litter decomposition and the macroinvertebrate communities in the soil underneath their canopies, as a result of species-specific characteristics. A field decomposition experiment was performed in a mature forest stand of tropical montane cloud forest in Mexico. The areas under the canopies of Quercus laurina Humbl. & Bompl., Oreopanax xalapensis (Kunth) Decne. & Planchon and Beilschmedia ovalis (Blake) C. K. Allen trees were used as experimental units. The natural soil and litter macroinvertebrate communities were monitored and compared to the community that invaded decomposition boxes with reciprocally transplanted leaf litter. The abundances of four macroinvertebrate taxa in natural litter differed among tree species independently of season. No differences were found in the soil community. The response to experimental litter by macroinvertebrate taxa suggests that the production of a specific quality of litter is an important mechanism by which a tree influences the litter macroinvertebrate community that develops under its canopy. However, not all differences in community composition naturally found between tree species can be explained by differences in litter quality during the first year of decomposition. Differences in nutrient release that occur after the first year, and physical properties of litter also probably play an important role. Independently of the canopy tree, the initial chemical quality (N, P, Ca, Mg and lignin) of experimental litter largely determined the decomposition rate and nutrient dynamics of decomposing leaves. However, it was found that under O. xalapensis trees the breakdown of lignin from the litter produced by the same species of tree was particularly effective. This suggests that a feedback has developed between this tree species and the decomposer community prevailing under its canopy.     

Ectomycorrhizal-Dominated Boreal and Tropical Forests Have Distinct Fungal Communities,but Analogous Spatial Patterns across Soil Horizons

Fungi regulate key nutrient cycling processes in many forest ecosystems, but their diversity and distribution within and across ecosystems are poorly understood. Here, we examine the spatial distribution of fungi across a boreal and tropical ecosystem, focusing on ectomycorrhizal fungi. We analyzed fungal community composition across litter (organic horizons) and underlying soil horizons (0–20 cm) using 454 pyrosequencing and clone library sequencing. In both forests, we found significant clustering of fungal communities by site and soil horizons with analogous patterns detected by both sequencing technologies. Free-living saprotrophic fungi dominated the recently-shed leaf litter and ectomycorrhizal fungi dominated the underlying soil horizons. This vertical pattern of fungal segregation has also been found in temperate and European boreal forests, suggesting that these results apply broadly to ectomycorrhizal-dominated systems, including tropical rain forests. Since ectomycorrhizal and free-living saprotrophic fungi have different influences on soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics, information on the spatial distribution of these functional groups will improve our understanding of forest nutrient cycling.     

Functional Composition of Tree Communities Changed Topsoil Properties in an Old Experimental Tropical Plantation

Forest biogeochemistry is strongly determined by the interaction between the tree community and the topsoil. Functional strategies of tree species are coupled to specific chemical leaf traits, and thus also to litter composition, which affects mineral soil characteristics. The limited understanding on this interaction is mainly based on shorter-term common garden experiments in temperate forest, and needs to be extended to other forest types and climates if we want to understand the universality of this linkage. In particular, for highly diverse tropical forests, our understanding of this interaction remains limited. Using an old experimental plantation within the central Congo basin, we examined the relationship between leaf and litter chemical composition and topsoil properties. Canopy, litter and topsoil characteristics were measured and we determined how the community-level leaf and litter chemical composition altered the topsoil carbon, major plant nutrients and exchangeable cation concentration, acidity and pH over the last eight decades. We found that functional composition strongly affected topsoil pH. In turn, topsoil pH strongly determined the soil total carbon and available phosphorus, total nitrogen and exchangeable potassium. Our results indicate that, as observed in temperate common garden experiments, trees alter chemical topsoil properties primarily through soil acidification, differently induced by functional composition of the tree community. The strong link between this community-level composition and topsoil characteristics, on a highly representative soil type for the tropics, improves our understanding of tropical forests biogeochemistry.     

四川盆地亚热带常绿阔叶林不同物候期凋落物分解与土壤动物群落结构的关系

为了解植物生长不同物候时期凋落物分解过程中土壤动物群落结构动态及其与凋落物分解的关系,以四川盆地亚热带常绿阔叶林典型人工林树种马尾松和柳杉,次生林树种香樟和麻栎凋落物为研究对象,采用凋落物分解袋试验研究,凋落物分解过程中土壤动物的群落特征。4种凋落物分解袋共获得土壤动物8047只,其中,柳杉(2341只)>香樟(2105只)>马尾松(2046只)>麻栎(1555只)。其中,秋末落叶期、萌动期和展叶期,马尾松凋落物袋中主要以捕食性土壤动物为优势类群,而后以菌食性土壤动物为主;香樟凋落物袋中除秋末落叶期和叶衰期以菌食性土壤动物为主要优势类群外,其他各时期均以捕食性土壤动物为主要优势类群;柳杉凋落物分解各时期均以菌食性土壤动物为主要优势类群;麻栎凋落物分解在前3个时期以菌食性为主,而后以植食性土壤动物为主要优势类群。相关分析表明,在秋末落叶期和萌动期土壤动物的个体密度主要和氮、磷含量及其格局密切相关,叶衰期主要和难分解组分木质素显著相关。除在秋末落叶期土壤动物对凋落物分解的贡献率与土壤动物的个体密度显著相关外,其余主要物候关键时期均与土壤动物的类群密度及其食性显著相关。     

Distinctive Bacterial Communities in the Rhizoplane of Four Tropical Tree Species

It is known that the microbial community of the rhizosphere is not only influenced by factors such as root exudates, phenology, and nutrient uptake but also by the plant species. However, studies of bacterial communities associated with tropical rainforest tree root surfaces, or rhizoplane, are lacking. Here, we analyzed the bacterial community of root surfaces of four species of native trees, Agathis borneensis, Dipterocarpus kerrii, Dyera costulata, and Gnetum gnemon, and nearby bulk soils, in a rainforest arboretum in Malaysia, using 454 pyrosequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. The rhizoplane bacterial communities for each of the four tree species sampled clustered separately from one another on an ordination, suggesting that these assemblages are linked to chemical and biological characteristics of the host or possibly to the mycorrhizal fungi present. Bacterial communities of the rhizoplane had various similarities to surrounding bulk soils. Acidobacteria, Alphaproteobacteria, and Betaproteobacteria were dominant in rhizoplane communities and in bulk soils from the same depth (0–10?cm). In contrast, the relative abundance of certain bacterial lineages on the rhizoplane was different from that in bulk soils: Bacteroidetes and Betaproteobacteria, which are known as copiotrophs, were much more abundant in the rhizoplane in comparison to bulk soil. At the genus level, Burkholderia, Acidobacterium, Dyella, and Edaphobacter were more abundant in the rhizoplane. Burkholderia, which are known as both pathogens and mutualists of plants, were especially abundant on the rhizoplane of all tree species sampled. The Burkholderia species present included known mutualists of tropical crops and also known N fixers. The host-specific character of tropical tree rhizoplane bacterial communities may have implications for understanding nutrient cycling, recruitment, and structuring of tree species diversity in tropical forests. Such understanding may prove to be useful in both tropical forestry and conservation.     

The source of microbial C has little impact on soil organic matter stabilisation in forest ecosystems

The source of microbial C is thought to impact its stability in soil due to variations in cellular biochemistry. It has been hypothesised that a fungal‐dominated community stabilises more C than a bacterial‐dominated community, in part due to chemical recalcitrance of their non‐living biomass, particularly cell wall components and pigments. We compared the turnover of ¹³C‐labelled (99.9 atom %) temperate and tropical microbial isolates [i.e. fungi, Gram‐positive bacteria (including actinobacteria) and Gram‐negative bacteria] in temperate (California) and tropical (Puerto Rico) forest soils. While significant differences in ¹³C recovery and mean residence times occurred among some microbial additions, similar turnover rates were observed, and in general, results do not support the view that microbial biochemistry affects soil C maintenance. Different effects by microbial necromass additions in California and Puerto Rico suggest that ecosystem‐specific effects may be as important to microbial C stabilisation as its macromolecular composition and recalcitrance.     

Distinctive Phyllosphere Bacterial Communities in Tropical Trees

Recent work has suggested that in temperate and subtropical trees, leaf surface bacterial communities are distinctive to each individual tree species and dominated by Alpha- and Gammaproteobacteria. In order to understand how general this pattern is, we studied the phyllosphere bacterial community on leaves of six species of tropical trees at a rainforest arboretum in Malaysia. This represents the first detailed study of ‘true’ tropical lowland tree phyllosphere communities. Leaf surface DNA was extracted and pyrosequenced targeting the V1–V3 region of 16S rRNA gene. As was previously found in temperate and subtropical trees, each tree species had a distinctive bacterial community on its leaves, clustering separately from other tree species in an ordination analysis. Bacterial communities in the phyllosphere were unique to plant leaves in that very few operational taxonomic units (0.5%) co-occurred in the surrounding soil environment. A novel and distinctive aspect of tropical phyllosphere communities is that Acidobacteria were one of the most abundant phyla across all samples (on average, 17%), a pattern not previously recognized. Sequences belonging to Acidobacteria were classified into subgroups 1–6 among known 24 subdivisions, and subgroup 1 (84%) was the most abundant group, followed by subgroup 3 (15%). The high abundance of Acidobacteria on leaves of tropical trees indicates that there is a strong relationship between host plants and Acidobacteria in tropical rain forest, which needs to be investigated further. The similarity of phyllosphere bacterial communities amongst the tree species sampled shows a significant tendency to follow host plant phylogeny, with more similar communities on more closely related hosts.     

Soil Bacterial Community Response to Differences in Agricultural Management along with Seasonal Changes in a Mediterranean Region

Land-use change is considered likely to be one of main drivers of biodiversity changes in grassland ecosystems. To gain insight into the impact of land use on the underlying soil bacterial communities, we aimed at determining the effects of agricultural management, along with seasonal variations, on soil bacterial community in a Mediterranean ecosystem where different land-use and plant cover types led to the creation of a soil and vegetation gradient. A set of soils subjected to different anthropogenic impact in a typical Mediterranean landscape, dominated by Quercus suber L., was examined in spring and autumn: a natural cork-oak forest, a pasture, a managed meadow, and two vineyards (ploughed and grass covered). Land uses affected the chemical and structural composition of the most stabilised fractions of soil organic matter and reduced soil C stocks and labile organic matter at both sampling season. A significant effect of land uses on bacterial community structure as well as an interaction effect between land uses and season was revealed by the EP index. Cluster analysis of culture-dependent DGGE patterns showed a different seasonal distribution of soil bacterial populations with subgroups associated to different land uses, in agreement with culture-independent T-RFLP results. Soils subjected to low human inputs (cork-oak forest and pasture) showed a more stable bacterial community than those with high human input (vineyards and managed meadow). Phylogenetic analysis revealed the predominance of Proteobacteria, Actinobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Firmicutes phyla with differences in class composition across the site, suggesting that the microbial composition changes in response to land uses. Taken altogether, our data suggest that soil bacterial communities were seasonally distinct and exhibited compositional shifts that tracked with changes in land use and soil management. These findings may contribute to future searches for bacterial bio-indicators of soil health and sustainable productivity.     

Macrofauna assemblage composition and soil moisture interact to affect soil ecosystem functions

Changing climatic conditions and habitat fragmentation are predicted to alter the soil moisture conditions of temperate forests. It is not well understood how the soil macrofauna community will respond to changes in soil moisture, and how changes to species diversity and community composition may affect ecosystem functions, such as litter decomposition and soil fluxes. Moreover, few studies have considered the interactions between the abiotic and biotic factors that regulate soil processes. Here we attempt to disentangle the interactive effects of two of the main factors that regulate soil processes at small scales - moisture and macrofauna assemblage composition. The response of assemblages of three common temperate soil invertebrates (Glomeris marginata Villers, Porcellio scaber Latreille and Philoscia muscorum Scopoli) to two contrasting soil moisture levels was examined in a series of laboratory mesocosm experiments. The contribution of the invertebrates to the leaf litter mass loss of two common temperate tree species of contrasting litter quality (easily decomposing Fraxinus excelsior L. and recalcitrant Quercus robur L.) and to soil CO₂ fluxes were measured. Both moisture conditions and litter type influenced the functioning of the invertebrate assemblages, which was greater in high moisture conditions compared with low moisture conditions and on good quality vs. recalcitrant litter. In high moisture conditions, all macrofauna assemblages functioned at equal rates, whereas in low moisture conditions there were pronounced differences in litter mass loss among the assemblages. This indicates that species identity and assemblage composition are more important when moisture is limited. We suggest that complementarity between macrofauna species may mitigate the reduced functioning of some species, highlighting the importance of maintaining macrofauna species richness.     

Bacterial Community Responses to Soils along a Latitudinal and Vegetation Gradient on the Loess Plateau,China

Soil bacterial communities play an important role in nutrient recycling and storage in terrestrial ecosystems. Loess soils are one of the most important soil resources for maintaining the stability of vegetation ecosystems and are mainly distributed in northwest China. Estimating the distributions and affecting factors of soil bacterial communities associated with various types of vegetation will inform our understanding of the effect of vegetation restoration and climate change on these processes. In this study, we collected soil samples from 15 sites from north to south on the Loess Plateau of China that represent different ecosystem types and analyzed the distributions of soil bacterial communities by high-throughput 454 pyrosequencing. The results showed that the 142444 sequences were grouped into 36816 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) based on 97% similarity. The results of the analysis showed that the dominant taxonomic phyla observed in all samples were Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria and Planctomycetes. Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria were the two most abundant groups in all samples. The relative abundance of Actinobacteria increased from 14.73% to 40.22% as the ecosystem changed from forest to sandy, while the relative abundance of Proteobacteria decreased from 35.35% to 21.40%. Actinobacteria and Proteobacteria had significant correlations with mean annual precipitation (MAP), pH, and soil moisture and nutrients. MAP was significantly correlated with soil chemical and physical properties. The relative abundance of Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria and Planctomycetes correlated significantly with MAP, suggesting that MAP was a key factor that affected the soil bacterial community composition. However, along with the MAP gradient, Chloroflexi, Bacteroidetes and Cyanobacteria had narrow ranges that did not significantly vary with the soil and environmental factors. Overall, we conclude that the edaphic properties and/or vegetation types are driving bacterial community composition. MAP was a key factor that affects the composition of the soil bacteria on the Loess Plateau of China.     

不同树叶凋落物对人参土壤理化性质及微生物群落结构的影响

树种选择是林下山参护育成败的关键,研究树叶凋落物对人参土壤养分、微生物群落结构组成的影响,旨在为林下山参护育选择适宜林地及农田栽参土壤改良提供科学依据和理论指导。通过盆栽试验,研究添加5.0 g色木槭Acer mono.Maxim.var.mono(A)、赤松Pinus densiflora Sieb.et Zucc.(B)、胡桃楸Juglans mandshurica Maxim.(C)、紫椴Tilia amurensis Rupr.(D)、蒙古栎Quercus mongolica Fisch.ex Ledeb.(E)树叶凋落物到土壤中,种植人参(Panax ginseng C.A.meyer)后研究土壤理化性质以及微生物群落结构的变化。结果表明:添加不同树叶处理后人参土壤性质发生改变,土壤p H值显著高于对照土壤5.91(P0.05),土壤全氮、速效氮磷、微生物碳氮在所有树叶处理中显著增加(P0.05),而土壤容重、速效钾和C/N在添加树叶处理中降低。18个土壤样品基因组,经16S和ITS1测序分别得到6064和1900个OUTs。其中细菌涵盖了42门、117纲、170目、213科、225属,真菌涵盖了24门、98纲、196目、330科、435属。不同树叶处理人参土壤细菌和真菌地位发生改变,细菌Proteobacteria是树叶分解的关键微生物,添加树叶后其多样性显著高于对照(P0.05)。而细菌Bacteroidetes和真菌Basidiomycota可能是区别阔叶林和针叶林树种的关键微生物,针叶林中含量显著低于阔叶林(P0.05),而真菌Ascomycota是针叶林分解的关键微生物。进一步从不同分类水平上得到特定树叶凋落物的特异细菌和真菌。典型相关分析(CDA)表明细菌Bacteroidetes、Chloroflexi、Actinobacteria及真菌Basidiomycota、Zygomycota、Chytridiomycota及Ascomycota的位置及多样性的改变均与土壤因子SMBN、TN、AP、SOC、AK、C/N、p H有关。综上所述,添加不同树叶后不仅提高土壤微生物量碳氮、改善土壤理化性质,同时改变微生物群落结构组成,不同树叶处理土壤理化性质不同导致人参土壤微生物组成的差异,本结果对于林下参选地和农田栽参土壤微生物改良具有理论指导作用。     

Experimental litterfall manipulation drives large and rapid changes in soil carbon cycling in a wet tropical forest

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 sensitivity of surface soil C pools and fluxes to different litter inputs. After only 2 years of treatment, doubling litterfall inputs increased surface soil C concentrations by 31%, removing litter from the forest floor drove a 26% reduction over the same time period, and these changes in soil C concentrations were associated with variations in dissolved organic matter fluxes, fine root biomass, microbial biomass, soil moisture, and nutrient fluxes. However, the litter manipulations had only small effects on soil organic C (SOC) chemistry, suggesting that changes in C cycling, nutrient cycling, and microbial processes in response to litter manipulation reflect shifts in the quantity rather than quality of SOC. The manipulation also affected soil CO ₂ fluxes; the relative decline in CO ₂ production was greater in the litter removal plots (?22%) than the increase in the litter addition plots (+15%). Our analysis showed that variations in CO ₂ fluxes were strongly correlated with microbial biomass pools, soil C and nitrogen (N) pools, soil inorganic P fluxes, dissolved organic C fluxes, and fine root biomass. Together, our data suggest that shifts in leaf litter inputs in response to localized human disturbances and global environmental change could have rapid and important consequences for belowground C storage and fluxes in tropical rain forests, and highlight differences between tropical and temperate ecosystems, where belowground C cycling responses to changes in litterfall are generally slower and more subtle.     

Templates of food–habitat resources for the organization of soil animals in temperate and tropical forests

The functioning and structure of terrestrial ecosystems are shaped and maintained by plant–decomposer interactions. The food and habitat of animal populations are biogenic and are mainly of plant origin (plant litter) in terrestrial ecosystems. Primary resources of the food-habitat template for the organization of soil animals are provided by the primary production of plants, and are then modified through decomposition processes by microbial populations. In the microbial decomposition system, the efficiency of carbon utilization by microbial decomposers characterizes the decomposition processes between tropical and temperate forest ecosystems. Tropical forests show poor development of soil reservoir systems because of the high efficiency of lignin decomposition by microbial populations. The decomposition processes of leaf litter are described briefly for the understanding of organization of soil animal communities in tropical and temperate forests. A comparison of decomposition processes shows qualitative differences in decomposition between temperate and tropical forests. The composition of functional groups of soil animals is well explained by the decomposition processes in both forests.     

Size does matter – effects of tropical rainforest fragmentation on the leaf litter ant community in Sabah, Malaysia

Primary tropical lowland rainforest in Sabah, Malaysia, has been largely reduced to small to medium-sized, often isolated, forest islands surrounded by a highly altered agricultural landscape. The biodiversity patterns of leaf litter ant communities were monitored in two forest fragments of differing size as well as in a contiguous forest over the course of two years. Species number and diversity in the forest isolates was significantly lower, reaching only 47.5% of the species number collected in the contiguous forest. Species density was also lower, which had led to a thinning of the ant community in the fragments. Community composition was substantially altered in the forest remnants, and an increase of tramp species with smaller fragment size was detected. These results were unexpected and alarming, as the medium-sized forest is with its 42.9 km² a comparatively large primary forest fragment for Sabah.     

Partitioning the impact of abiotic factors and spatial patterns on species richness and community structure of ground ant assemblages in four Bornean rainforests

Contrasting theories have been proposed to explain the structure of ecological communities. Here, we studied the impact of environmental factors and spatial patterns on ground‐foraging ant communities in four different forest types of Gunung Mulu National Park in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia. Forest types differed in their environmental parameters and were inhabited by distinct ant communities, with various indicator species characteristic for single forest types. Three environmental parameters, soil volume, number of trees and amount of leaf litter, had the most influence on ant communities. Spatial patterns were correlated with environmental parameters and also influenced ant communities. Environmental parameters influenced community composition only moderately (r²=0.14), but had a high impact on species richness (r²=0.44). Spatial patterns explained only a small fraction of the total variance in species patterns, while much of the residual space in the ordination space of ant community patterns remained unexplained. We conclude that environmental parameters shape the number of niches within a tropical soil habitat, but identities of species that occupy those niches are accounted for by other factors like competition, traits and neutral processes that may further reduce unexplained variance in species ordination.     

The effects of vegetation types and microhabitats on carabid beetle community composition in cool temperate Japan

The effects of vegetation types and environmental factors on carabid beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) communities were studied. Carabid beetles were collected using pitfall traps (total 2844 trapping days) and seven microenvironmental factors were measured in four vegetation types: grassland, natural evergreen coniferous forest (Pinus densiflora), deciduous broad-leaved natural forest (Quercus crispula, Betula platyphylla, Alnus japonica, or Fagus crenata), and deciduous coniferous plantation (Larix kaempferi) in cool temperate Japan. These four vegetation types provided a novel comparison between natural forests and plantations because the vast majority of related studies have investigated only deciduous broad-leaved natural forests and evergreen coniferous plantations. PERMANOVA indicated that vegetation types affected carabid community composition. Ordination plots showed that community composition differed greatly between grassland and forest vegetation types, but that community composition in the plantation forest overlapped with that of natural forest types. Characteristics differentiating the grassland included a high proportion of winged species and a low mean carabid body weight. Among the examined environmental factors, litter depth, soil water content, and depth of the soil A-horizon had large effects on carabid communities. These results suggest that the effect of afforestation on carabid communities in cool temperate Japan might be insignificant compared with the effects of cover types (deciduous vs. evergreen) and microenvironmental factors.     

Leaf Litter Disappearance in Earthworm-Invaded Northern Hardwood Forests: Role of Tree Species and the Chemistry and Diversity of Litter

Earthworm invasion in North American temperate forest reduces forest floor mass, yet the interactions between litter composition, invasive earthworm community composition, and forest floor structure and composition are not well understood. For 2?years, we compared disappearance of leaf litter in field mesocosms in which we manipulated litter composition (monocultures of Quercus rubra, Acer saccharum, and Tilia americana litter, and an equal mixture of all three) and thereby the initial litter chemistry (C, C fractions, N, Ca) in sites with and without the major litter-feeding invasive earthworm species. The disappearance of litter mass followed the same ranking at both the sites: T. americana?>?equal mixtures?>?A. saccharum?≥?Q. rubra. However, differences in disappearance rate between the sites depended on litter composition and time. The differences in mass loss among litters of different compositions were greatest at the site invaded by the large litter-feeding earthworm, Lumbricus terrestris, and especially for T. americana and the mixture. Similarly, observed disappearance of the litter mixture was faster than predicted by an additive model at the site with L. terrestris, especially for the higher quality litter component in early summer. Initial litter calcium content was the best predictor (R ²?≥?0.90) of overall litter mass remaining each year, supporting the idea of the importance of calcium in forest floor dynamics, especially in the presence of calciferous, invasive earthworms.     

Fungal community composition in neotropical rain forests: the influence of tree diversity and precipitation

Plant diversity is considered one factor structuring soil fungal communities because the diversity of compounds in leaf litter might determine the extent of resource heterogeneity for decomposer communities. Lowland tropical rain forests have the highest plant diversity per area of any biome. Since fungi are responsible for much of the decomposition occurring in forest soils, understanding the factors that structure fungi in tropical forests may provide valuable insight for predicting changes in global carbon and nitrogen fluxes. To test the role of plant diversity in shaping fungal community structure and function, soil (0-20?cm) and leaf litter (O horizons) were collected from six established 1-ha forest census plots across a natural plant diversity gradient on the Isthmus of Panama. We used 454 pyrosequencing and phospholipid fatty acid analysis to evaluate correlations between microbial community composition, precipitation, soil nutrients, and plant richness. In soil, the number of fungal taxa increased significantly with increasing mean annual precipitation, but not with plant richness. There were no correlations between fungal communities in leaf litter and plant diversity or precipitation, and fungal communities were found to be compositionally distinct between soil and leaf litter. To directly test for effects of plant species richness on fungal diversity and function, we experimentally re-created litter diversity gradients in litter bags with 1, 25, and 50 species of litter. After 6?months, we found a significant effect of litter diversity on decomposition rate between one and 25 species of leaf litter. However, fungal richness did not track plant species richness. Although studies in a broader range of sites is required, these results suggest that precipitation may be a more important factor than plant diversity or soil nutrient status in structuring tropical forest soil fungal communities.