Abstract
Purpose Humification of plant detritus is an important pathway for soil organic matter formation. The long-standing studies considered that humification proceeds at very late stages of litter decomposition, while the degree of humification in newly shed litters before decomposition remains unclear. In this study, we aimed to explore the degree of humification and conjugate structures of humic substances in newly shed litters, and their variations between litter types with different chemical components and between seasons with different environmental conditions.
Materials and methods In this study, we collected fresh foliar (evergreen vs. deciduous and tree vs.shrub), twig, flower, and fruit litters by litter traps in a subalpine forest on the eastern Tibetan Plateau monthly from April to November 2016. The humification degrees of these newly shed litters were evaluated by the optical properties (i.e., ΔlogK, E4/E6, and A600/C) of the alkaline-extracted humic acid-like solutions. E4/E6 and ΔlogK are often used to evaluate the degree of humification, and these values were also used to classify the maturity levels of humic substances.
Results and discussion We found that the ΔlogK, E4/E6, and A600/C values varied greatly among seasons with a higher degree of humification observed in August than in the other months for foliar litter. Compared with other litter components, foliar litter exhibited higher ΔlogK, E4/E6, and A600/C values, indicating that fresh foliar litter had a lower degree of humification than the other litters. Twig litter had more stable and abundant precursors of soil organic matter with a higher degree of humification. Moreover, higher degrees of humification with lower ΔlogK and E4/E6 values were observed in evergreen and tree litter species than in deciduous and shrub species, indicating that deciduous and shrub species retained strong abilities to sequester carbon(C).
Conclusions The degree of humification in newly shed litters was strongly affected by chemical components. Twig litter had more stable and abundant precursors of soil organic matter with high degree of humification. Deciduous species and shrub species retained strong abilities to sequester C in cold biomes. Additionally, the humic substances in newly shed litters were very young (type Rp), as assessed by the ΔlogK and A600/C values according to the Kumada’s classification, implying that these humic substances might have faster turnover times but strongly contribute to soil organic matter formation in this subalpine forest.
Keywords: ΔlogK .E4/E6 .Humicsubstances .Humification .Litterfall .Soilorganicmatter
