Abstract

Litter decomposition is an important source of soil organic matter and nutrients; however, few studies have explored how vegetation patches affect wind-driven litter mobility and accumulation. In this study, we aimed to test the following hypotheses: (1) vegetation patches can reduce litter removal and facilitate litter accumulation, (2) litter mobility results in the heterogeneous redistribution of carbon and nutrients over the land surface, and (3) litter removal rates differ among different litter types (e.g., leaf and stem). Four vegetation patch types and six litter types were used to investigate the impacts of vegetation patches on litter mobility and accumulation. The results show that compared with almost bare ground patches, patches with vegetation cover had significantly higher litter accumulation, with the shrub patch type having the highest accumulation amount. The rate of litter removal due to wind was highest for the almost bare surface type (P4) and lowest for the shrub patch (P1) and Stipa grandis community (P2) types. There were significant differences in the removal rate among the different litter types. These findings indicate that wind-based litter redistribution among bare, S. grandis-dominated, and shrub-dominated patches is at least partially responsible for increasing the spatial heterogeneity of resources on a landscape scale.

Details

Title
Vegetation patches increase wind-blown litter accumulation in a semi-arid steppe of northern China
Author
Yan, Yuchun 1 ; Xin, Xiaoping 1 ; Xu, Xingliang 2 ; Wang, Xu 1 ; Ruirui Yan 1 ; Murray, Philip J 3 

 Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, People’s Republic of China 
 Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy Sciences, 11A, Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, People’s Republic of China 
 Rothamsted Research, North Wyke, Okehampton, Devon, EX20 2SB, UK 
Publication year
2016
Publication date
Dec 2016
Publisher
IOP Publishing
e-ISSN
17489326
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2549329215
Copyright
© 2016. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.