Coffee (Coffea arabica) flowers synchronously and flowers are only open for a few days before senescing. Flower petals often decompose easily, containing higher concentrations of nutrients relative to other plant tissues. Thus, a pulse of petals into the detrital pool could be beneficial for the decomposer community and accelerate decomposition processes. Our research assessed the magnitude of the pulse of petals within a shaded coffee farm, and the impact of petals on the litter arthropod community and on the rate of leaf litter decomposition. Three plots of 12 coffee plants were monitored throughout the flowering period to estimate the magnitude of the bloom. Pitfall traps were used to assess the litter arthropod community before and after flowering. Finally, litterbags with C. arabica leaves alone and C. arabica leaves with flower petals were used to compare the effect of petals on decomposition rates. The average number of flowers open per plant at the peak of the bloom was 792 flowers. When scaling to obtain an estimate per hectare in a year, our results indicate flower petals could contribute 26.27 kg of nitrogen, 2.03 kg of phosphorus, and 26.7 kg of potassium. The leaf litter community did not change during our sampling, suggesting that any community effects may be acting on a longer time scale or smaller spatial scale. Leaf litter decomposed nearly three times as quickly in litterbags that included flower petals, relative to litterbags with only C. arabica leaf litter in the first month and twice as fast in the second month. The rate of decomposition with petals exceeded the rate of decomposition without petals and was highest after one month, though the benefit continued after two months. Our results demonstrate that the presence of flower petals can accelerate short‐term decomposition processes.

中文翻译：

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谁给的助焊剂？阿拉伯咖啡的同步开花加速叶片凋落物的分解

咖啡（阿拉伯咖啡）同步开花，并且在衰老之前仅开放几天。花瓣通常易于分解，相对于其他植物组织而言，其营养成分含量更高。因此，花瓣进入碎屑池可能有益于分解者群体并加速分解过程。我们的研究评估了一个阴凉的咖啡农场中花瓣脉冲的大小，以及花瓣对凋落的节肢动物群落和叶子凋落物分解速率的影响。在整个开花期监测了12个咖啡植物的3个样地，以估计开花的幅度。陷阱陷阱用于评估开花前后的节肢动物节肢动物群落。最后，用阿拉伯衣藻进行垃圾袋用单独的叶子和带有花瓣的阿拉比卡茶叶片比较花瓣对分解速率的影响。在开花高峰时，每株植物的平均开花量为792朵花。当按比例缩放以获取一年中每公顷的估计值时，我们的结果表明，花瓣可以贡献26.27千克的氮，2.03千克的磷和26.7千克的钾。在我们的采样过程中，落叶凋落物群落没有改变，这表明任何群落效应都可能在较长的时间尺度或较小的空间尺度上起作用。相对于仅含阿拉伯咖啡的垃圾袋，包括花瓣在内的垃圾袋中的叶子凋落物分解的速度几乎快三倍第一个月的叶子凋落物，第二个月的速度快两倍。有花瓣的分解速率超过了无花瓣的分解速率，并且在一个月后达到最高，尽管在两个月后收益仍在继续。我们的结果表明，花瓣的存在可以加速短期分解过程。