Research

Leaf litter decomposition rates directly affect ecosystem’s nutrient cycle as degradation releases various elements, such as nitrogen and phosphorus, vital for the growth of primary producers, back into the environment. Thus, to understand how climate change affects ecosystem functioning, it is imperative to understand better how leaf litter decomposition rates are affected by changes in the prevailing environment. In this sense, the wetland Caño Tiburones is a perfect natural setting to evaluate how leaf litter decay respond to rising sea levels. However, discrepancies in published studies evaluating how leaf litter responds to increased salinity prevent us from making a conclusive statement about how nutrient cycling within Caño Tiburones would respond to climatic variation. For example, Zhai et al. (2021) found that leaf decomposition rates increase as salinity levels increase in the Yellow River Delta wetland in China, which contrasts with Roache et al. (2006), who found that decomposition rates in areas of high salinity in an Australian wetland were 3 times slower than in areas of low salinity. With these contrasting results, our aim was to determine whether an increase in salinity would accelerate leaf litter decomposition in Caño Tiburones.