Table 1 Chemical properties of the litter layers.

From: Litter quality drives the differentiation of microbial communities in the litter horizon across an alpine treeline ecotone in the eastern Tibetan Plateau

Variable

Coniferous forest

Alpine shrubland

Alpine meadow

LF layer

H layer

LF layer

H layer

LF layer

H layer

SOC (g kg–1)

330 ± 40.9a

201.8 ± 51.5b

284.5 ± 70.1a

210.2 ± 81.7b

415.7 ± 42.3a

115.4 ± 26.0b

TN (g kg–1)

9.4 ± 1.3a

8.5 ± 1.0a

9.4 ± 2.1a

8.8 ± 0.8a

7.4 ± 0.7a

7.1 ± 1.3a

TP (g kg–1)

2.3 ± 0.6b

2.9 ± 0.5a

2.1 ± 0.5b

2.4 ± 0.4a

1.9 ± 0.7b

2.4 ± 0.3a

C:N

35.5 ± 5.4a

23.5 ± 4.5b

30.4 ± 4.9a

23.7 ± 8.5b

57.0 ± 8.9a

16.4 ± 2.5b

C:P

152.8 ± 35a

72.6 ± 22.8b

141.5 ± 38a

86.8 ± 31.5b

245.8 ± 76.7a

49 ± 11.4b

N:P

4.3 ± 0.8a

3.1 ± 0.7b

4.7 ± 1.4a

3.7 ± 0.5b

4.4 ± 1.6a

3.0 ± 0.5b

MC (%)

54.0 ± 15.2a

48.9 ± 13.3a

60 ± 8.3a

60.4 ± 5a

16.4 ± 6.7b

46.2 ± 6.3a

pH

5.5 ± 0.2a

4.8 ± 0.2b

5.7 ± 0.2a

5.5 ± 0.3a

5.7 ± 0.1b

6.0 ± 0.1a

Cellulose (%)

34.8 ± 5.9a

16.3 ± 6.3b

28.5 ± 11.4a

16.1 ± 6b

37.0 ± 4.6a

7.9 ± 3.1b

Lignin (%)

25.5 ± 3.5a

14.8 ± 6.1b

17.1 ± 6.4a

14.3 ± 3.4a

12.2 ± 5a

6.2 ± 2.9b

  1. The results are the means ± standard errors of 15 replicates. Lowercase letters indicate significant differences (p < 0.05) between different layers within the same vegetation type as identified by the Mann-Whitney U test. SOC, soil organic carbon; TN, total nitrogen; TP, total phosphorus; MC, moisture content.
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