Litter Controls Earthworm-Mediated Carbon and Nitrogen Transformations in Soil from Temperate Riparian Buffers

Figure 3

Scatter plot showing the functional relationship between CO₂ flux and DOC concentration in leachate. Each point is the mean of 9 measurements taken of 1 of the 4 replicates during a 20 wks incubation study from microcosms filled with riparian soil that had earthworms present (EW, ) or no earthworms (NW, ) and received no litter (NL), soybean (SB), reed canarygrass (RCG), or deciduous-mix litter (DM) as the litter source. The linear equation and standard error of the estimated slope of the line describe the functional relationship for EW and NW treatments, across litter types. The strength of the relationship is given as Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient (ρ) and significance of each relationship (P).