Sunlight promotes aboveground carbon loss by producing polysaccharides from litter decomposition in a temperate forest

Chang, Lu, Deng, Jiaojiao, Zhang, Juanjuan, Fu, Qinglong, Wang, Tao, Osono, Takashi, Peng, Huan, Robson, Matthew ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8631-796X , Kurokawa, Hiroko and Wang, Qing-Wei (2025) Sunlight promotes aboveground carbon loss by producing polysaccharides from litter decomposition in a temperate forest. Journal of Forestry Research, 36 (22).

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Abstract

Photodegradation is considered as a universal contributing factor to litter decomposition and carbon (C) cycling within the Earth’s biomes. Identifying how solar radiation modifies the molecular structure of litter is essential to understand the mechanism controlling its decomposition and reaction to shifts in climatic conditions and land-use. In this study, we performed a spectral-attenuation experiment following litter decomposition in an understory and gap of a temperate deciduous forest. We found that short-wavelength visible light, especially blue light, was the main factor driving variation in litter molecular structure of Fagus crenata Blume, Quercus crispula Blume, Acer carpinifolium Siebold & Zuccarini and Betula platyphylla Sukaczev, explaining respectively 56.5%, 19.4%, 66.3%, and 16.7% of variation in its chemical composition. However, the variation also depended on canopy openness: Only in the forest gap was lignin aromatic C negatively associated with C-oxygen (C–O) bonding in polysaccharides receiving treatments containing blue light of the full spectrum of solar radiation. Regardless of species, the decomposition index of litter that explained changes in mass and lignin loss was driven by the relative content of C–O stretching in polysaccharides and lignin aromatic C. The results suggest that the availability of readily degradable polysaccharides produced by the reduction in lignin aromatic C most plausibly explains the rate of litter photodegradation. Photo-products of photodegradation might augment the C pool destabilized by the input of readily degradable organic compounds (i.e., polysaccharides).

Item Type:	Article
Journal / Publication Title:	Journal of Forestry Research
Publisher:	Springer
ISSN:	1993-0607
Departments:	Institute of Science and Environment > Forestry and Conservation
Additional Information:	(Thomas) Matthew Robson, UK National School of Forestry, Institute of Science and Environment, University of Cumbria, UK (and Viikki Plant Science Centre (ViPS), University of Helsinki, Finland). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
Depositing User:	Insight Administrator
SWORD Depositor:	Insight Administrator
Date Deposited:	17 Jan 2025 09:10
Last Modified:	17 Jan 2025 09:15
URI:	https://insight.cumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/8588

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