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Decomposition rates of bryophytes in managed boreal forests: influence of bryophyte species and forest harvesting

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Abstract

The slow decomposition rate of boreal forest floor bryophytes contributes both to maintaining high soil C reserves as well as affecting conditions for tree growth by maintaining excessively high soil water content, cooling the soil and slowing nutrient cycles. In this study, mass loss of three bryophyte species (Pleurozium schreberi, Sphagnum capillifolium, S. fuscum) was measured in unharvested, partial cut and low-retention cut forest blocks. Mesh decomposition bags containing the three species and wood sticks were placed at two depths in colonies of either P. schreberi or S. capillifolium (environment) in the three harvest treatments and retrieved after two growing seasons. Mass loss was primarily related to substrate type (P. schreberi > S. capillifolium > wood sticks > S. fuscum) and secondarily to depth. Harvest treatment and environment (P. schreberi or S. capillifolium) only weakly affected sphagna mass loss. The weak effect of harvest treatment suggests that conditions created by low retention cuts do not to stimulate decomposition in this system and are not important enough to stimulate carbon loss, or to counteract paludification. On the other hand, the strong effect of bryophyte type indicates that conditions affecting bryophyte colonization and succession are of great importance in driving carbon and nutrient cycles.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Catherine Béland, Maude Beauregard, Suzie Rollin, and Mylène Francoeur in the field. Hervé Bescond also provided field support. The comments of three anonymous reviewers greatly improved the manuscript. This study was financed by a National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada scholarship, the Lake Abitibi Model Forest, the NSERC-UQAT-UQAM Industrial Chair in Sustainable Forest Management, the Canadian Forest Service, Action concertée fonds nature et technologies fonds forestier II, and by an NSERC partnership grant with forest industries and the Canadian Forest Service.

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  1. NSERC-UQAT-UQAM Industrial Chair in Sustainable Forest Management, 445 boul. de l’Université, Rouyn-Noranda, Québec, Canada, J9X 5E4

    Nicole J. Fenton & Yves Bergeron

  2. Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Laurentian Forestry Centre, 1055 du P.E.P.S., Stn. Sainte-Foy, P.O. Box 10380, Québec, Québec, Canada, G1V 4C7

    David Paré

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  1. Nicole J. Fenton
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Correspondence to Nicole J. Fenton.

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Appendix A

Appendix A

Description of the method of wet weight determination

The constant hydration state was established for each species using the method described in Frego and Carleton (1995), Mulligan and Gignac (2001). Briefly, a constant weight was assured by removing all of water from the bryophytes that is held in exterior macropores by centrifugation in a salad spinner. The water remaining in micropores and inside the plant can be said to be a constant amount. This state was determined by performing a series of standardization curves for each species, where shoots are initially soaked and weighed and then subjected to increasingly longer periods of centrifugation until a constant weight is achieved. Once the weight of the sample does not decrease with increasing centrifugation, only water held tightly in micropores and internal water (inside the hyalocyst cells of the sphagna) is present. The graph for Pleurozium schreberi is shown as an example (Fig. A1). This indicates the amount of centrifugation necessary to reach a standard hydration state that is comparable between samples and across time, and allows the comparison of wet weights. This method has the advantage of not assuming that different stems of the same species have a similar dry weight, and it does not damage the experimental stems via drying.

Fig. A1
figure 2

Mean weight (g) and standard error of Pleurozium schreberi bundles after increasing numbers of spins in the salad spinner. Weight was constant after five spins, and experimental bundles were subsequently spun five time

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In order to determine the initial dry weight of the sample stems, and in order to compare it with the final dry weight, regression curves were constructed for each species by comparing the wet and dry weights of several bundles of stems that were centrifuged and then dried (Fig. A2).

Fig. A2
figure 3

Regression curve of wet (constant) and dry (oven dried) weights for Pleurozium schreberi with the regression equation

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Fenton, N.J., Bergeron, Y. & Paré, D. Decomposition rates of bryophytes in managed boreal forests: influence of bryophyte species and forest harvesting. Plant Soil 336, 499–508 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-010-0506-z

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