%0 Journal Article %T Larger phylogenetic distances in litter mixtures: lower microbial biomass and higher C/N ratios but equal mass loss %+ Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution [Rennes] (ECOBIO) %+ Key Laboratory of Hangzhou City for Ecosystem Protection and Restoration %+ State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change %+ Department of Animal Ecology, Amsterdam %+ Johann-Friedrich Blumenbach Institut für Zoologie und Anthropologie %+ Department of Sustainable Soils & Grassland Systems Rothamsted Research %+ Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IB / CAS) %+ Department of Systems Ecology %A Pan, Xu %A Berg, Matty P. %A Butenschoen, Olaf %A Murray, Phil J. %A Bartish, Igor V. %A Cornelissen, Johannes H.C. %A Dong, Ming %A Prinzing, Andreas %Z M.D. was partly funded by NSFC (grant no. 31261120580) and the Innovative R & D grant of Hangzhou Normal University (grant no. 201203). A.P. was supported by CNRS-ATIP grant. I.V.B.was supported by Purkine Fellowship. X.P.was supported by the two mobility grants from UEB and CNRS-CAS, as well as by KNAW-CEP grant no. 12CDP007 to J.H.C.C. %< avec comité de lecture %@ 0962-8452 %J Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences %I Royal Society, The %V 282 %N 1806 %P 20150103 %8 2015 %D 2015 %R 10.1098/rspb.2015.0103 %M 25876845 %K complementarity versus resource concentration hypotheses %K decomposer %K phylogenetic biodiversity ecosystem functioning %K niche %K litter degradation %K phylogenetic signal of functional traits %Z Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and EcologyJournal articles %X Phylogenetic distances of coexisting species differ greatly within plant communities, but their consequences for decomposers and decomposition remain unknown. We hypothesized that large phylogenetic distance of leaf litter mixtures increases differences of their litter traits, which may, in turn, result in increased resource complementarity or decreased resource concentration for decomposers and hence increased or decreased chemical transformation and reduction of litter. We conducted a litter mixture experiment including 12 common temperate tree species (evolutionarily separated by up to 106 Myr), and sampled after seven months, at which average mass loss was more than 50%. We found no effect of increased phylogenetic distance on litter mass loss or on abundance and diversity of invertebrate decomposers. However, phylogenetic distance decreased microbial biomass and increased carbon/nitrogen (C/N) ratios of litter mixtures. Consistently, four litter traits showed (marginally) significant phylogenetic signal and in three of these traits increasing trait difference decreased microbial biomass and increased C/N. We suggest that phylogenetic proximity of litter favours microbial decomposers and chemical transformation of litter owing to aresource concentration effect. This leads to a new hypothesis: closely related plant species occurring in the same niche should promote and profit from increased nutrient availability. %G English %L hal-01143370 %U https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01143370 %~ SDE %~ INSU %~ UNIV-RENNES1 %~ UR2-HB %~ CNRS %~ OSUR %~ GIP-BE %~ ECOBIO %~ ECOBIO-ESDD %~ UR1-UFR-SVE %~ UR1-HAL %~ UR1-SDV %~ UNIV-RENNES2 %~ TEST-UNIV-RENNES %~ TEST-UR-CSS %~ UNIV-RENNES %~ INRAE %~ UR1-ENV %~ TEST3-HALCNRS