Effects of UV-B filtration on the chemistry and decomposition of Fraxinus excelsior leaves

Several studies have demonstrated a range of effects of outdoor UV-B supplementation during the growing season on leaf chemistry including carbohydrate extractability and on the subsequent decomposition of leaf litter. However, this study investigates the effects of several levels of UV radiation on leaf carbohydrate chemistry and subsequent decomposition using filtration of ambient sunlight. Fraxinus excelsior seedlings were grown outdoors in the UK under ambient solar irradiation and under filtration treatments which excluded either UV-B or both UV-A and UV-B. After one year of decomposition in the litter layer of a mixed semi-natural woodland, the loss of dry mass was 10% greater, relative to starting mass, in the leaves which had received no UV at all or no UV-B throughout the growing season (P < 0.05). Analysis of the cell wall material before decomposition revealed no significant trends in total carbohydrate and lignin content with UV exclusions, no change in foliar nitrogen and C-to-N ratio and a 2% increase in foliar carbon (P < 0.05) only with the combined exclusion of UV-A and UV-B. A sequential extraction of carbohydrate with a series of extractants (phosphate buffer, ammonium oxalate, urea, sodium hydroxide and formic acid) showed no trends with UV exclusions but digestion with the fungal enzyme mixture Driselase revealed that exclusion of UV-B only caused rhamnose and mannose residues of the cell-wall polysaccharides to resist Driselase digestion whist exclusion of all UV had the opposite effect. Whereas some studies have reported that elevated UV-B radiation from lamp supplementation can increase rates of subsequent leaf decomposition, the higher UV-B levels in the ambient controls of this filtration study resulted in 29% lower decomposition rates than the filtered-UV treatments.