Seasonal dynamics of detritus flows and decomposition across ecosystem boundaries

Abstract

Material fluxes are ubiquitous in nature within and across ecosystems, connecting habitats with vastly different characteristics, like forests to rivers and lakes.1–3 Although individual fluxes and their cascading effects are well known,4–6 very few studies address the intra-annual phenology of ecosystem processes, despite the pronounced seasonality of fluxes. Here, we empirically quantified and resolved fluxes of recalcitrant and labile types of leaf litter in temperate riparian forests and streams across a year, representing one of the most emblematic examples of seasonal systems. We quantified intra-annual variation in litter inputs from terrestrial plants to forest floors and streams and estimated aquatic and terrestrial decomposition rates across the year at 6-week intervals. Our data show that the autumn pulse of leaf litter is complemented by smaller magnitude but more constant-through-the-year lateral flows to the stream ecosystems. Decomposition of labile litter fluctuated seasonally, on a different phenology, with generally higher rates in summer, but rates of recalcitrant litter decomposition remained largely constant. Microorganisms were the main contributors to the decomposition process in both forests and streams. Overall, our work highlights the asynchronous and seasonally variable changes in decomposition rates between recalcitrant and labile detritus despite their initial synchronized availability and suggests that the dominating presence of recalcitrant litter buffers ecosystem responses to the concentrated temporal distribution of litter resources.7,8 Investigating such ecological processes both across ecosystem borders and at fine intra-annual resolutions is imperative to understand complex system responses in the context of species’ shifts in phenologies and resource quality.9–1