%0 Journal Article %T Functional traits drive the contribution of solar radiation to leaf litter decomposition among multiple arid-zone species %+ Key Laboratory of Hangzhou City for Ecosystem Protection and Restoration %+ State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change %+ Department of Systems Ecology %+ Evolution & Ecology Research Centre %+ Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution [Rennes] (ECOBIO) %A Pan, Xu %A Song, Yao-Bin %A Liu, Guo-Fang %A Hu, Yu-Kun %A Ye, Xue-Hua %A Cornwell, William K. %A Prinzing, Andreas %A Dong, Ming %A Cornelissen, Johannes H.C. %Z NSFC (Grant 31261120580, 31400346, 31470712 and 31470032) and the Innovative R & D grant (201203) from Hangzhou Normal University. JHCC was supported by a Senior Visiting Scientist grant by CAS and by grant 12CDP007 of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW). %< avec comité de lecture %@ 2045-2322 %J Scientific Reports %I Nature Publishing Group %V 5 %N 1 %P 13217 %8 2015 %D 2015 %R 10.1038/srep13217 %M 26282711 %Z Environmental Sciences/Biodiversity and EcologyJournal articles %X In arid zones, strong solar radiation has important consequences for ecosystem processes. To better understand carbon and nutrient dynamics, it is important to know the contribution of solar radiation to leaf litter decomposition of different arid-zone species. Here we investigated: (1) whether such contribution varies among plant species at given irradiance regime, (2) whether interspecific variation in such contribution correlates with interspecific variation in the decomposition rate under shade; and (3) whether this correlation can be explained by leaf traits. We conducted a factorial experiment to determine the effects of solar radiation and environmental moisture for the mass loss and the decomposition constant k-values of 13 species litters collected in Northern China. The contribution of solar radiation to leaf litter decomposition varied significantly among species. Solar radiation accelerated decomposition in particular in the species that already decompose quickly undershade. Functional traits, notably specific leaf area, might predict the interspecific variation in that contribution. Our results provide the first empirical evidence for how the effect of solar radiation on decomposition varies among multiple species. Thus, the effect of solar radiation on the carbon flux between biosphere and atmosphere may depend on the species composition of the vegetation. %G English %L hal-01195874 %U https://univ-rennes.hal.science/hal-01195874 %~ 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