Effects of two key plant trait spectra on litter layer properties and habitat provision functions

作者：Saori Fujii, Matty P. Berg, Richard S. P. van Logtestijn, S. Makino, Johannes H. C. Cornelissen · 发表于：Journal of Ecology · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1111/1365-2745.70187 · 被引用次数：1 · 研究领域：Soil Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics、Freshwater macroinvertebrate diversity and ecology、Isotope Analysis in Ecology

Abstract Plant litter harbours a wide range of organisms, such as soil animals, microbes, vascular plant seeds and seedlings, mosses and lichens. While it is well‐recognized that litter drives carbon and nutrient cycling through its traits related to the plant resource economics spectrum (PES), its explanatory power for predicting the litter‐dwelling biological community has been very low. In this era of biodiversity change, litter habitat provisioning functions should receive more research attention. A conceptual trait space defined by a physical trait axis related to the litter size and shape spectrum (SSS) and a biochemical trait axis (PES) has been proposed, to explain habitat as well as nutrition functions for soil organisms. We aim to improve the explanatory power of litter traits for the litter‐dwelling animal communities by testing this concept, and by connecting fundamental traits related to the size and shape of single litter particles with litter layer properties more directly related to habitat quality (e.g. moisture regime, habitat space). We tested the concept by using 16 woody species, and examined how different traits or trait axes determine the litter and litter layer properties directly related to habitat quality for soil animals. In addition, we assessed in a field experiment with litter layers in mesocosms how this new trait framework explains the soil invertebrate community. The two plant trait spectra together accounted for >60% of the variance in lit...