How do wood decomposition relate to other traits in the tree?
Answered by Benjamin G. Jackson and co-workers in the Early View
paper “Are functional traits and litter decomposability
coordinated across leaves, twigs, and wood? A test using
temperate rainforest tree species”. Here’s Benjamin’s short
summary and his pedagogic figure showing the results: Dead wood
represents an important pool of carbon and nutrients entering
the decomposer subsystem in forested ecosystems. However, our
understanding the factors regulating wood decomposition remain
poorly characterized. In our study we ask two main questions: -
Do tree species with leaves that decompose rapidly also have
wood that decomposes rapidly? - Do the same functional traits
that control leaf litter decomposition control the decomposition
of wood? We addressed these questions by comparing how traits
and litter decomposition vary across 27 co-occurring tree
species from temperate rain forests in New Zealand. For each
tree species, we quantified the function