Atributos estruturais do detrito foliar é o melhor preditor da decomposição em uma floresta de restinga no nordeste brasileiro

Abstract

The litter decomposition is an important process in the maintenance and regulation of ecosystems functioning, which is essential mainly in environments with low nutrient quantity. One of the important aspects of litter for this process is the quality of the organic matter, thai its responsible for mediating the nutrients availability in the ecosystems. Chemical and structural litter traits may be important for decomposition. However, their relative importance is not well understood yet. Thus, we evaluated how functional traits affect species decomposition. For this, we carried out the determination of nine functional traits (seven chemical and two structural) in 26 litter plant species present in a semi-deciduous tropical forest. To estimate the species decomposition, we performed an experiment using the litterbag approach, along 371 days. Our results show that only structural traits: water retention capacity and specific leaf area, were important for species decomposition (p<0.05; R²=0.2157 and p<0.05; R² = 0.206, respectively), which had positive effects on litter mass loss. The chemical traits analyzed (N, P, K, Ca, Na, Mg, and C) were not significant to explain the decomposition rate (p> 0.05). Thus, our work shows that, for the studied area, structural traits presented a better explanation for decomposition compared to chemical traits. Structural traits can integrate other litter characteristics that can be also important for decomposition (i.e. concentrations of lignin and phenolic compounds).