Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla 666303, Yunnan, China.
Centre for Mountain Ecosystem Studies, Kunming Institute of Botany, Kunming 650201, Yunnan, China.
Sci Rep. 2016 Oct 4;6:34153. doi: 10.1038/srep34153.
Organic matter decomposition represents a vital ecosystem process by which nutrients are made available for plant uptake and is a major flux in the global carbon cycle. Previous studies have investigated decomposition of different plant parts, but few considered bark decomposition or its role in decomposition of wood. However, bark can comprise a large fraction of tree biomass. We used a common litter-bed approach to investigate factors affecting bark decomposition and its role in wood decomposition for five tree species in a secondary seasonal tropical rain forest in SW China. For bark, we implemented a litter bag experiment over 12 mo, using different mesh sizes to investigate effects of litter meso- and macro-fauna. For wood, we compared the decomposition of branches with and without bark over 24 mo. Bark in coarse mesh bags decomposed 1.11-1.76 times faster than bark in fine mesh bags. For wood decomposition, responses to bark removal were species dependent. Three species with slow wood decomposition rates showed significant negative effects of bark-removal, but there was no significant effect in the other two species. Future research should also separately examine bark and wood decomposition, and consider bark-removal experiments to better understand roles of bark in wood decomposition.
有机物质分解是一个重要的生态系统过程，通过这个过程养分可供植物吸收，同时也是全球碳循环的主要通量之一。先前的研究已经调查了不同植物部分的分解，但很少有研究考虑到树皮分解或其在木材分解中的作用。然而，树皮可以占树木生物量的很大一部分。我们在中国西南的一个季节性热带雨林中使用常见的凋落物床方法来研究影响树皮分解及其在木材分解中的作用的因素。对于树皮，我们进行了为期 12 个月的凋落物袋实验，使用不同的网眼大小来研究凋落物中型和大型动物的影响。对于木材，我们比较了有和没有树皮的树枝在 24 个月内的分解情况。粗网袋中的树皮分解速度比细网袋中的树皮分解速度快 1.11-1.76 倍。对于木材分解，树皮去除的反应取决于物种。三种木材分解速度较慢的物种的树皮去除有显著的负效应，但在另外两个物种中则没有显著影响。未来的研究还应该分别研究树皮和木材的分解，并考虑进行树皮去除实验，以更好地了解树皮在木材分解中的作用。
