| Summary: | The influence of plant litter on soil varies with soil depth, species composition, and life forms of plants. Recalcitrant indexes are significantly lower in inflorescence litter as compared to leaf litter (C/N, N/P, lignin, cellulose, lignin-cellulose index, and lignin/N), with a majority of the interactions occurring between species and litter types. In a field pot experiment, N exchangeable pool and soil solutions with and without litter addition differed significantly with increased soil dissolvable inorganic nitrogen (DIN) and available phosphorus (A−P) at 0–5 cm shallow soil layer in samples with added litter. However, there was an unexpected decline in soil organic matter (SOM) after inflorescence litter addition as higher content of non-structural carbohydrates triggered faster decomposition of SOM. Exchangeable pool had significant interactions between litter addition and soil depth. Furthermore, different NH4+−N and Organic−N in soil solution were developed from litter addition, but the differences in SOM was mainly determined by soil depths. Both microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN) were improved with inflorescence litter addition in the shallow soil layer. After sorting the inflorescence litters according to life forms, A−P was the most dominant nutrient and DIN was the least dominant nutrient in phanerophytes while a completely contrasting trend was seen in geophytes. Thus, chemical properties of inflorescence litter were remarkably different from those of leaf litter, which elicited species-specific and life form-specific effects on soil nutrient pool, and efficiently modified soil nutrients.
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