Nutrient and stoichiometric time series measurements of decomposing coarse detritus in freshwaters

作者：Caleb J. Robbins, Beth C. Norman, Halvor M. Halvorson, David W. P. Manning, Elliot Bastias, Cristiane Biasi, Allyn K. Dodd, Rebecca A. Eckert, Alice Gossiaux, Jérémy Jabiol, Andrew S. Mehring, Ada Pastor · 发表于：Ecology · 年份：2023 · DOI：10.1002/ecy.4114 · 被引用次数：6 · 研究领域：Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies、Freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity and ecology、Soil and Water Nutrient Dynamics

Decomposition of coarse detritus (e.g., dead organic matter larger than ~1 mm such as leaf litter or animal carcasses) in freshwater ecosystems is well described in terms of mass loss, particularly as rates that compress mass loss into one number (e.g., a first-order decay coefficient, or breakdown rate, "k"); less described are temporal changes in the elemental composition of these materials during decomposition, with important implications for elemental cycling from microbes to ecosystems. This stands in contrast with work in the terrestrial realm, where a focus on detrital elemental cycling has provided a sharper mechanistic understanding of decomposition, especially with specific processes such as immobilization and mineralization. Notably, freshwater ecologists often measure carbon (C), nitrogen (N), and phosphorus (P), and their stoichiometric ratios in decomposing coarse materials, including carcasses, wood, leaf litter, and more, but these measurements remain piecemeal. These detrital nutrients are measurements of the entire detrital-microbial complex and are integrative of numerous processes, especially nutrient immobilization and mineralization, and associated microbial growth and death. Thus, data relevant to an elemental, mechanistically focused decomposition ecology are available in freshwaters, but have not been fully applied to that purpose. We synthesized published detrital nutrient and stoichiometry measurements at a global scale, yielding 4038 observations c...