New article in Journal Plant and Soil
Read our new paper led by Szilvi in Journal Plant and Soil
Estimating belowground decomposability is still often a challenge mostly due to methodolgical barriers and determining the senescence status of the available material. Because of this, we investigated the effect of experimental (i.e. drought-induced) and field-observational senescence methods and associated traits on the decomposability of belowground organs (roots and rhizomes) of four Carex species in a microcosm decomposition experiment.
While organ decomposability regarding their senescence status (healthy versus senescing) was comparable, strikingly, belowground decomposability of Carex species seemed to depend more on the different senescence methods than the senescence status of the available material. However, based on contrasting trait responses, we hypothesise that the different senescence methods might induced different physiological responses in plants, which could affect their overall decomposability.
