Many studies found that plant litter decomposition rate is related with litter concentration of nutrients ,such as N. But there is no a clear reason. I want to ask how the N concentration of litter influence on the litter decomposition.
Nitrogen is particularly important in litter decomposition studies, as it is very much needed by the microbial communities that colonize the litter and start the decay process. High nitrogen contents can favor the decomposition in the early stages but, later on, it can also form recalcitrant compounds with lignin slowing down the process. Plenty of publications are available on the topic. Major details and several examples can be found, for instance, in Berg, B., McClaugherty, C., 2014. Plant litter: decomposition, humus formation, carbon sequestration, Springer.
Dear Dr Wang
I guess that this answer may be developed but I will start. The microbial decomposition of litter is the dominant one and as microorganisms, e.g. fungi, grow into the litter they have a need for nutrients, among them carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur plus further nutrients for their growth. For growth they need to synthesize e.g. protein, DNA and cell walls and that is wehere N,P and S come in.. Often all these three nutrients are limiting for microbial growth and you can thus obtain a positive relationship between N, P and S and litter mass loss, at least for newly shed litter.. In my experience N does not always give the best relationship. Much of the N in litter is tied up in complex compounds which are less available to the decomposing microroganisms.
Often enough a relationship to P becomes better than to N. Further, the relationship you mention seems to be one that is best observed for newly shed litter, but not for all - e.g. N2-fixing plkant tend to have an excess of N also in newly shed litter. Later on, after some decomposition the relationship to N may change.
Best regards
Björn Berg
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