Schaefer Douglas, Steinberger Yosef, Whitford Walter G
Department of Biology, New Mexico State University, 88003, Las Cruces, NM, USA.
Oecologia. 1985 Feb;65(3):382-386. doi: 10.1007/BF00378913.
We measured mass losses of both buried and surface litter of six litter types: leaves of the perennial evergreen shrub, Larrea tridentata, leaves of the winter deciduous perennials Fluorensia cernua, Prosopis glandulosa and Chilopsis linearis (a desert riparian species), an evergreen monocot, Yucca elata, and a mixture of annual plants. These species differed in lignin content and carbon-nitrogen ratios. There was no correlation between rates of mass loss and percent lignin, carbon-nitrogen ratio, or lignin-nitrogen ratio. The leaves of F. cernua and the mixed annuals exhibited the highest rates of mass loss. Surface litter of Y. elata, the mixed annuals and C. linearis exhibited higher mass loss than buried litter of the same species. The patterns of mass loss of buried and surface litter differed with buried litter mass loss occurring as a negative exponential and surface litter exhibiting low rates in winter and spring and high rates in summer. There was no correlation between mass loss in surface bags that were field exposed for 1 month and actual evapotranspiration (AET) but there was a correlation between AET and mass losses in buried litter. A model relating mass loss to AET and initial lignin content underestimated mass losses in all species examined.
我们测量了六种凋落物类型的埋藏和地表凋落物的质量损失，这六种凋落物分别是：多年生常绿灌木三齿拉瑞阿（Larrea tridentata）的叶子、冬季落叶多年生植物弗洛伦西亚草（Fluorensia cernua）、腺牧豆树（Prosopis glandulosa）和线性千屈菜（Chilopsis linearis，一种沙漠河岸物种）的叶子、一种常绿单子叶植物丝兰（Yucca elata）以及一年生植物的混合物。这些物种在木质素含量和碳氮比方面存在差异。质量损失率与木质素百分比、碳氮比或木质素 - 氮比之间没有相关性。弗洛伦西亚草的叶子和一年生植物混合物的质量损失率最高。丝兰、一年生植物混合物和线性千屈菜的地表凋落物比相同物种的埋藏凋落物表现出更高的质量损失。埋藏和地表凋落物的质量损失模式不同，埋藏凋落物的质量损失呈负指数形式，而地表凋落物在冬季和春季损失率较低，在夏季损失率较高。在野外暴露1个月的地表袋子中的质量损失与实际蒸散量（AET）之间没有相关性，但AET与埋藏凋落物的质量损失之间存在相关性。一个将质量损失与AET和初始木质素含量相关联的模型低估了所有研究物种的质量损失。
