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Patterns and Driving Mechanism of C, N, P Ecological Stoichiometry in Plant-Litter-Soil Systems of Monoculture and Mixed Coastal Forests in Southern Zhejiang Province of China
oleh: Binghui Bao, Xiaoling Huang, Haidong Xu, Hongtao Xie, Xiangrong Cheng
Format: | Article |
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Diterbitkan: | MDPI AG 2023-06-01 |
Deskripsi
Mixed forests are usually associated with higher resource utilization compared to the corresponding monocultures; however, the tree mixing effects of carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) ecological stoichiometry in coastal forest ecosystems remains largely unknown. We compared the C, N, P stoichiometry in different ecosystem components (i.e., canopy layer, herb layer, litter layer, 0–20 cm and 20–40 cm soils) among two monocultures (<i>Casuarina equisetifolia</i> and <i>Eucalyptus saligna</i>) and their mixture in Taizhou, Zhejiang province, China. We also assessed the effects of the main microhabitat factors (wind speed, soil salinity, soil moisture and pH) on C, N, P stoichiometry. Two monocultures and their mixture showed the same elemental pattern of “low C and high P” for both the canopy and herb layers, and soil, indicating evident N limitations; however, the mixture intensified the N deficiency more. The mixture showed stronger correlations among the C, N, P stoichiometry than the monocultures. Redundancy and hierarchical partitioning analysis showed the overall and independent effects of the microhabitat factors on the C, N, P stoichiometry separately, in which soil moisture presented more effects on shallow soil (20–40 cm) C, N, and P, while soil salinity mainly affected the herb and litter layers; wind speed had greater effects on canopy layer C, N, P stoichiometry. These results are expected to provide a management reference for the regeneration of degraded plantations in the southern Zhejiang province of China.