Premium
Flow Velocity Effect on Leaf Litter Breakdown in Tufa Depositing System (Plitvice Lakes, Croatia)
Author(s) -
Belančić Anita,
Kepčija Renata Matoničkin,
Miliša Marko,
Moraj Anđelka Plenković,
Habdija Ivan
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
international review of hydrobiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.524
H-Index - 52
eISSN - 1522-2632
pISSN - 1434-2944
DOI - 10.1002/iroh.200811162
Subject(s) - tufa , deposition (geology) , beech , fagus sylvatica , environmental science , hydrology (agriculture) , ecology , chemistry , biology , geology , paleontology , sediment , organic chemistry , carbonate , geotechnical engineering
Considerable amount of riparian leaf litter is annually supplied to the cascade Plitvice Lakes and trapped on tufa barriers where it decays together with aquatic macrophytes. These barriers are the sites of heavy calcite precipitation that can widely differ in terms of current velocity. We conducted a leafbag experiment at sites differing in flow velocity and tufa deposition rate. Decomposition of Petasites spp. and Fagus sylvatica was higher under high current (0.80 m/s) and high tufa deposition areas than in low current (< 0.20 m/s) and low tufa deposition areas (k = 0.085 vs. 0.021 for Petasites spp. and 0.009 vs. 0.002 for Fagus sylvatica ). We concluded that although tufa deposition could interfere with decomposition by obstructing physical abrasion and also restricting microbial conditioning, thin calcite crusts developed on the surface of the leaves made them more fragile and thus accelerated their decomposition. High current velocity probably magnified this effect by supporting higher tufa deposition and coarser type of tufa fabrics. (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)