Boyero, Luz and Pearson, Richard G. and Hui, Cang and Gessner, Mark O. and Pérez, Javier and Alexandrou, Markos A. and Graça, Manuel A. S. and Cardinale, Bradley J. and Albariño, Ricardo J. and Arunachalam, Muthukumarasamy and Barmuta, Leon A. and Boulton, Andrew J. and Bruder, Andreas and Callisto, Marcos and Chauvet, Eric and Death, Russell G. and Dudgeon, David and Encalada, Andrea C. and Ferreira, Verónica and Figueroa, Ricardo and Flecker, Alexander S. and Gonçalves, José F. Jr and Helson, Julie E. and Iwata, Tomoya and Jinggut, Tajang and Mathooko, Jude M. and Mathuriau, Catherine and M'Erimba, Charles and Moretti, Marcelo S. and Pringle, Catherine M. and Ramírez, Alonso and Ratnarajah, Lavenia and Rincon, José and Yule, Catherine M. Biotic and abiotic variables influencing plant litter breakdown in streams: a global study. (2016) Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 283 (1829). 1-10. ISSN 0962-8452
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(Document in English)
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.2664
Abstract
Plant litter breakdown is a key ecological process in terres- trial and freshwater ecosystems. Streams and rivers, in particular, contribute substantially to global carbon fluxes. However, there is little information available on the relative roles of different drivers of plant litter break- down in fresh waters, particularly at large scales. We present a global-scale study of litter breakdown in streams to compare the roles of biotic, climatic and other environ- mental factors on breakdown rates. We conducted an experiment in 24 streams encompassing latitudes from 47.88 N to 42.88 S, using litter mixtures of local species dif- fering in quality and phylogenetic diversity (PD), and alder (Alnus glutinosa) to control for variation in litter traits. Our models revealed that breakdown of alder was driven by climate, with some influence of pH, whereas variation in breakdown of litter mixtures was explained mainly by litter quality and PD. Effects of litter quality and PD and stream pH were more positive at higher temp- eratures, indicating that different mechanisms may operate at different latitudes. These results reflect global variability caused by multiple factors, but unexplained variance points to the need for expanded global-scale comparisons.
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