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Plant community composition as a driver of decomposition dynamics in riparian wetlands

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Abstract

Riparian wetlands are well known for providing the important ecosystem service of carbon storage. However, changes in land-use regimes surrounding riparian wetlands have been shown to result in alterations to the wetland plant community. These plant community changes have the potential to alter litter quality, decomposition rates, and ultimately the capacity of riparian wetlands to store carbon. To determine the effects of plant community shifts associated with disturbance on decomposition and carbon inputs, we performed a yearlong decomposition experiment using in situ herbaceous material, leaf litter, and control litter and examined biomass inputs in six headwater riparian wetlands in central Pennsylvania. Two sites were classified as Hemlock-Mixed Hardwood Palustrine Forest, two were classified as Broadleaf Palustrine Forest, and two were classified as Reed Canary Grass-Floodplain Grassland (Zimmerman et al. 2012). Plant matter with greater initial percent C, percent lignin, and lignin:N ratios decomposed more slowly while plant matter with greater initial cellulose decomposed more quickly. However, no significant differences were found between plant community types in decomposition rate or amount of carbon remaining at the end of the experiment, indicating that the differences in plant community type did not have a large impact on decomposition in riparian wetlands. This work has important implications for studies that examine the decomposition dynamics of a few select species, as they may not capture the decomposition dynamics of the plant community and thus extrapolating results from these studies to the larger ecosystem may be inappropriate.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the United States Environmental Protection Agency (Grant #R834262), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and The Pennsylvania State University for funding. Land access was provided by the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the Pennsylvania Game Commission, Larry Suwak, and David Culp. We would like to thank Denyce Maitland for assistance with plant C and N measures, the staff at Dairy One in Ithaca, NY for measures of plant lignin and cellulose, and Dr. Erica Smithwick for the use of the Thomas Mini-Mill®. Last but not least we would like to thank Hannah Ingram, Sarah Chamberlain, Kendra Martz, Kyle Martin, Marla Korpar, Melissa Miller, Melissa Pastore, and Dr. Michael Nassry for field and laboratory assistance.

Funding

This work was funded by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (Grant #R834262), The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (2012-2103 NASA Space Grant Fellowship ($5,000)), and The Pennsylvania State University (Graduate Student Fellowship).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Intercollegiate Program in Ecology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    A. Britson, D. Wardrop & P. Drohan

  2. Department of Geography, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    A. Britson & D. Wardrop

  3. Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA

    P. Drohan

Authors
  1. A. Britson
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  2. D. Wardrop
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  3. P. Drohan
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Correspondence to A. Britson.

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Britson, A., Wardrop, D. & Drohan, P. Plant community composition as a driver of decomposition dynamics in riparian wetlands. Wetlands Ecol Manage 24, 335–346 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-015-9459-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-015-9459-6

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