Common structure in the heterogeneity of plant-matter decay

Journal of the Royal Society Interface

Volumn 9, Issue 74, 2012, Pages 2255-2267

  Forney, David C ^a,b   Rothman, Daniel H ^a  

^a and Planetary Sciences ^*  (United States)

^b Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge   (United States)

Author keywords

Carbon cycle; Disordered kinetics; Litter decomposition; Respiration

Indexed keywords

INVERSE PROBLEMS; KINETICS; RANDOM PROCESSES; RATE CONSTANTS;

BIOCHEMICAL KINETICS; CARBON CYCLES; CARBON STOCKS; CLIMATIC CONDITIONS; COMMON STRUCTURES; DECOMPOSERS; DECOMPOSITION RATE; FASTER RATES; FIRST-ORDER; INTRINSIC VARIABILITIES; LITTER DECOMPOSITION; LOG-NORMAL; NATURAL ENVIRONMENTS; PLANT MATTER; RATE DISTRIBUTIONS; RESPIRATION; SUBSTRATE COMPOSITION; THEORETICAL EXPRESSION; TIME-SCALES;

CARBON;

ARTICLE; CARBON CYCLE; CLIMATE; DECOMPOSITION; ENVIRONMENTAL TEMPERATURE; KINETICS; MATHEMATICAL ANALYSIS; PLANT; STOCHASTIC MODEL;

EID: 84866169749     PISSN: 17425689     EISSN: 17425662     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rsif.2012.0122     Document Type: Article

References (63)

1. Falkowski, P. et al. 2000 The global carbon cycle: a test of our knowledge of earth as a system. Science 290, 291-296. (doi:10.1126/science.290. 5490.291)
2. Gholz, H. L., Wedin, D. A., Smitherman, S. M., Harmon, M. E. & Parton, W. J. 2000 Long-term dynamics of pine and hardwood litter in contrasting environments: toward a global model of decomposition. Glob. Change Biol. 6, 751-765. (doi:10.1046/j.1365-2486.2000.00349.x)
3. Tenney, F. G. & Waksman, S. A. 1929 Composition of natural organic materials and their decomposition in the soil. IV. The nature and rapidity of decomposition of the various organic complexes in different plant materials, under aerobic conditions. Soil Sci. 28, 55-84. (doi:10.1097/00010694-192907000- 00005)
4. Berg, B. & McClaugherty, C. 2007 Plant litter: decomposition, humus formation, carbon sequestration, 2nd edn. Berin, Germany: Springer.
5. Oades, J. 1988 The retention of organic matter in soils. Biogeochemistry 5, 35-70. (doi:10.1007/BF02180317)
6. Prescott, C. E. 2010 Litter decomposition: what controls it and how can we alter it to sequester more carbon in forest soils? Biogeochemistry 101, 133-149. (doi:10.1007/s10533-010-9439-0)
7. Blair, J. M., Parmelee, R. W. & Beare, M. H. 1990 Decay rates, nitrogen fluxes, and decomposer communiies of single- and mixed-species foliar litter. Ecology 71, 1976-1985. (doi:10.2307/ 1937606)
8. Trumbore, S. 2009 Radiocarbon and soil carbon dynamics. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 37, 47-66. (doi:10.1146/annurev.earth.36.031207.124300)
9. Johnson, D. W., Miller, W. W., Rau, B. M. & Meadows, M. W. 2011 The nature and potential causes of nutrient hotspots in a Sierra Nevada forest soil. Soil Sci. 176, 596-610. (doi:10.1097/SS.0b013e31823120a2)
10. Middelburg, J. J. 1989 A simple rate model for organic matter decomposition in marine sediments. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 53, 1577-1581. (doi:10.1016/0016-7037(89)90239-1)
11. Janssen, B. H. 1984 A simple method for calculating decomposition and accumulation of 'young' soil organic matter. Plant Soil 76, 297-304. (doi:10.1007/BF02205588)
12. Harmon, M. E., Silver, W. L., Fasth, B., Chen, H., Burke, I. C., Partons, W. J., Hart, S. C. & Currie, W. S. 2009 Long-term patterns of mass loss during the decomposition of leaf and fine root litter: an intersite comparison. Glob. Change Biol. 15, 1320-1338. (doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01837.x)
13. Friedlingstein, P. et al. 2006 Climate-carbon cycle feedback analysis: results from the C4MIP model intercomparison. J. Clim. 19, 3337-3353. (doi:10.1175/JCLI3800.1)
14. Todd-Brown, K., Hopkins, F., Kivlin, S., Talbot, J. & Allison, S. In press. A framework for representing microbial decomposition in coupled climate models. Biogeochemistry (doi:10.1007/s10533-011-9635-6)
15. Kirschbaum, M. U. F. 2000 Will changes in soil organic carbon act as a positive or negative feedback on global warming? Biogeochemistry 48, 21-51. (doi:10.1023/A:1006238902976)
16. Parton, W. J., Schimel, D. S., Cole, C. V. & Ojima, D. S. 1987 Analysis of factors controlling soil organic matter levels in great plains grasslands. Soil Sci. Soc. Am. J. 51, 1173-1179. (doi:10.2136/sssaj1987. 03615995005100050015x)
17. Bolker, B. M., Pacala, S. W. & Parton, W. J. 1998 Linear analysis of soil decomposition: insights from the century model. Ecol. Appl. 8, 425-439. (doi:10.2307/2641082)
18. Agren, G. I. & Bosatta, E. 1998 Theoretical ecosystem ecology: understanding element cycles, 1st edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
19. Manzoni, S., Katul, G. G. & Porporato, A. 2009 Analysis of soil carbon transit times and age distributions using network theories. J. Geophys. Res. 114, G04025. (doi:10.1029/2009JG001070)
20. May, R. M. 1975 Patterns of species abundance and diversity. In Ecology and evolution of communities (eds M. L. Cody & J. M. Diamond), pp. 81-120. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
21. Adair, E. C., Parton, W. J., Del Grosso, S. J., Silver, W. L., Harmon, M. E., Hall, S. A., Burke, I. C. & Hart, S. C. 2008 Simple three-pool model accurately describes patterns of long-term litter decomposition in diverse climates. Glob. Change Biol. 14, 2636-2660. (doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2008.01674. x)
22. Currie, W. S., Harmon, M. E., Burke, I. C., Hart, S. C., Parton, W. J. & Silver, W. 2010 Cross-biome transplants of plant litter show decomposition models extend to a broader climatic range but lose predictability at the decadal time scale. Glob. Change Biol. 16, 1744-1761. (doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486. 2009.02086.x)
23. Harmon, M. 2007 LTER Intersite Fine Litter Decomposition Experiment (LIDET), Forest Science Data Bank code TD023, Corvallis, OR [Database]. See http://andrewsforest.oregonstate.edu/data/abstract.cfm?dbcode=TD023.
24. Vlad, M. O., Huber, D. L. & Ross, J. 1997 Rate statistics and thermodynamic analogies for relaxation processes in systems with static disorder: application to stretched exponential. J. Chem. Phys. 106, 4157-4167. (doi:10.1063/1.473100)
25. Ross, J. & Vlad, M. O. 1999 Nonlinear kinetics and new approaches to complex reaction mechanisms. Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem. 50, 51-78. (doi:10.1146/annurev.physchem.50.1.51)
26. Plonka, A. 2001 Dispersive kinetics, 1st edn. Berlin, Germany: Springer.
27. Boudreau, B. P. & Ruddick, B. R. 1991 On a reactive continuum representation of organic matter diagenesis. Am. J. Sci. 291, 507-538. (doi:10.2475/ajs.291.5.507)
28. Rothman, D. H. & Forney, D. C. 2007 Physical model for the decay and preservation of marine organic carbon. Science 316, 1325-1328. (doi:10.1126/science.1138211)
29. Bosatta, E. 1995 The power and reactive continuum models as particular cases of the q-theory of organic matter dynamics. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 59, 3833-3835. (doi:10.1016/0016-7037(95)00287-A)
30. Carpenter, S. 1981 Decay of heterogenous detritus: a general model. J. Theor. Biol. 89, 539-547. (doi:10.1016/0022-5193(81)90026-6)
31. Feng, Y. 2009 K-model-A continuous model of soil organic carbon dynamics: theory. Soil Sci. 174, 482-493. (doi:10.1097/SS.0b013e3181bb0f80')
32. Feng, Y. 2009 Fundamental considerations of soil organic carbon dynamics. Soil Sci. 174, 467-481. (doi:10.1097/SS.0b013e3181bb0e87)
33. Manzoni, S. & Porporato, A. 2009 Soil carbon and nitrogen mineralization: theory and models across scales. Soil Biol. Biochem. 41, 1355-1379. (doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2009.02.031)
34. Berner, R. A. 1980 Early diagenesis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
35. Minderman, G. 1968 Addition, decomposition and accumulation of organic matter in forests. J. Ecol. 56, 355-362. (doi:10.2307/2258238)
36. Manzoni, S., Jackson, R. B., Trofymow, J. A. & Porporato, A. 2008 The global stoichiometry of litter nitrogen mineralization. Science 321, 684-686. (doi:10.1126/science.1159792)
37. Manzoni, S., Trofymow, J. A., Jackson, R. B. & Porporato, A. 2010 Stoichiometric controls on carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus dynamics in decomposing litter. Ecol. Monogr. 80, 89-106. (doi:10.1890/ 09-0179.1)
38. Hättenschwiler, S., Tiunov, A. V. & Scheu, S. 2005 Biodiversity and litter decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Evol. Syst. 36, 191-218. (doi:10.2307/30033802)
39. Gessner, M. O., Swan, C. M., Dang, C. K., McKie, B. G., Bardgett, R. D., Wall, D. H. & Hättenschwiler, S. 2010 Diversity meets decomposition. Trends Ecol. Evol. 25, 372-380. (doi:10.1016/j.tree.2010.01.010)
40. Feller, W. 1971 An introduction to probability theory and its applications, vol. 2, 2nd edn. New York, NY: Wiley.
41. Lamanna, R. 2005 On the inversion of multicomponent NMR relaxation and diffusion decays in heterogeneous systems. Concepts Magn. Reson. A 26, 78-90. (doi:10.1002/cmr.a.20036)
42. Kroeker, R. M. & Henkelman, R. M. 1986 Analysis of biological NMR relaxation data with continuous distributions of relaxation times. J. Magn. Reson. 69, 218-235. (doi:10.1016/0022-2364(86)90074-0)
43. Ansari, A., Berendzen, J., Bowne, S. F., Frauenfelder, H., Iben, I. E., Sauke, T. B., Shyamsunder, E. & Young, R. D. 1985 Protein states and proteinquakes. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 82, 5000-5004. (doi:10.1073/pnas.82.15. 5000)
44. Hansen, P. C. 1987 Rank-deficient and discrete ill-posed problems: numerical aspects of linear inversion. Monographs on Mathematical Modeling and Computation. Philadelphia, PA: Society for Industrial Mathematics.
45. Press, W. H., Flannery, B. P., Teukolsky, S. A. & Vetterling, W. T. 1992 Numerical recipes in C: the art of scientific computing, 2nd edn. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
46. Gallegos, D. P. & Smith, D. M. 1988 A NMR technique for the analysis of pore structure: determination of continuous pore size distributions. J. Colloid Interface Sci. 122, 143-153. (doi:10.1016/0021-9797(88)90297-4)
47. 2. Magn. Reson. Imaging 14, 761-767. (doi:10.1016/S0730- 725X(96)00161-0)
48. Limpert, E., Stahel, W. A. & Abbt, M. 2001 Log-normal distributions across the sciences: keys and clues. BioScience 51 , 341-352. (doi:10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0341:LNDATS]2.0.CO;2)
49. Montroll, E. W. & Shlesinger, M. F. 1982 On 1/f noise and other distributions with long tails. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 79, 3380-3383. (doi:10.1073/pnas.79.10.3380)
50. Forney, D. C. & Rothman, D. H. 2012 Inverse method for estimating respiration rates from decay time series. Biogeosci. Discuss. 9, 3795-3828. (doi:10.5194/ bgd-9-3795-2012)
51. Yeramian, E. & Claverie, P. 1987 Analysis of multiexponential functions without a hypothesis as to the number of components. Nature 326, 169-174. (doi:10.1038/326169a0)
52. Bolin, B. & Rodhe, H. 1973 A note on the concepts of age distribution and transit time in natural reservoirs. Tellus 25, 58-62. (doi:10.1111/j.2153- 3490.1973.tb01594.x)
53. Melillo, J. M., Aber, J. D. & Muratore, J. F. 1982 Nitrogen and lignin control of hardwood leaf litter decomposition dynamics. Ecology 63 , 621-626. (doi:10.2307/1936780)
54. Parton, W. J. et al. 1993 Observations and modeling of biomass and soil organic matter dynamics for the grassland biome worldwide. Glob. Biogeochem. Cyc. 7, 785-809. (doi:10.1029/93GB02042)
55. Craine, J. M., Fierer, N. & McLauchlan, K. K. 2010 Widespread coupling between the rate and temperature sensitivity of organic matter decay. Nat. Geosci. 3, 854-857. (doi:10.1038/ngeo1009)
56. Berg, B. & Laskowski, R. 2006 Litter decomposition: a guide to carbon and nutrient turnover, vol. 38. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Elsevier.
57. Cox, P. M. 2001 Description of the TRIFFID dynamics global vegetation model. Technical Note 24. Hadley Centre, Met Office, UK. See http://www.metoffice.com/publications/HCTN/
58. Moorcroft, P. R., Hurtt, G. C. & Pacala, S. W. 2001 A method for scaling vegetation dynamics: the ecosystem demography model (ED). Ecol. Monogr. 71, 557-585. (doi:10.2307/3100036)
59. Medvigy, D., Wofsy, S. C., Munger, J. W., Hollinger, D. Y. & Moorcroft, P. R. 2009 Mechanistic scaling of ecosystem function and dynamics in space and time: ecosystem Demography model version 2. J. Geophys. Res. 114, G01002. (doi:10.1029/2008JG000812)
60. Sitch, S. et al. 2003 Evaluation of ecosystem dynamics, plant geography and terrestrial carbon cycling in the LPJ dynamic global vegetation model. Glob. Change Biol. 9, 161-185. (doi:10.1046/j.1365-2486.2003.00569.x)
61. Krinner, G. 2005 A dynamic global vegetation model for studies of the coupled atmosphere-biosphere system. Glob. Biogeochem. Cyc. 19, GB1015. (doi:10.1029/2003GB002199)
62. Kendall, M. & Gibbons, J. D. 1990 Rank correlation methods, 5th edn. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
63. Hansen, P. C. 1994 Regularization tools: a Matlab package for analysis and solution of discrete ill-posed problems. Numer. Algorithms 6, 1-35. (doi:10.1007/BF02149761)