Abstract
Healthy soil ecosystems are important for urban sustainability, because they provide the basis for ecosystem services such as flood regulation, nutrient cycling and carbon sequestration. We investigated the soils beneath five types of urban land cover in the tropical city of Singapore—secondary forest, managed grass, shrubs, trees, and trees with shrubs. We quantified the capacity of these soils to support two key ecosystem functions: litter decomposition, which we measured using a standardised tea bag method, and infiltration, which we measured using a double ring infiltrometer. Soil samples (0–20 cm depth) were collected from 120 sites and were analysed for 15 soil and vegetation properties including pH, soil organic matter content, particle size, bulk density and soil nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. The forest sites had significantly higher leaf litter cover and canopy leaf area index than the other land cover types. Rates of litter decomposition and infiltration were highest in secondary forest, followed by trees with shrubs, and lowest in grass. Litter decomposition rates were positively related to soils with presence of soil invertebrate activity, leaf litter cover and soil nitrogen content. Infiltration rates were negatively related to soil bulk density. To optimise the delivery of soil ecosystem services in tropical cities, city managers and planners should protect any remaining fragments of forest, allow natural succession to occur, plant multi-layered vegetation with trees and shrubs, and restore urban soil by improving soil nutrients, reducing bulk density, and leaving leaf litter in situ.
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Acknowledgements
The research was conducted at the Future Cities Laboratory at the Singapore-ETH Centre, which was established collaboratively between ETH Zurich and Singapore’s National Research Foundation (FI 370074016) under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise programme. The authors would like to thank the National Parks Board, Town Councils, Public Utilities Board, and National University of Singapore for permission to conduct the field surveys (Permit number NP/RP16-096); Song Xiao Ping, Emmanuel Goh, Chan Jie Yi, Hazelina Yeo, Leon Gaw, Mohamed Lokman Mohd Yusof, Norazan Asari B Shamsudin, Syakirah Shukor, Jonathon Tan, Song Shuang and Chiam Zhongyu for field assistance; Darren Yeo and Tommy Tan for equipment loan; Boo Chih Min for plant species identification; and three anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions. All authors declare no conflict of interest.
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The research was conducted at the Future Cities Laboratory at the Singapore-ETH Centre, which was established collaboratively between ETH Zurich and Singapore’s National Research Foundation (FI 370074016) under its Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise programme. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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Conceptualisation: TKF, DRR, and PJE; Methodology: TKF, DRR, and SG; Investigation: TKF, CTWJ, LKL, DRR, RATL, and ZD; Formal analyses: TKF and DRR; Data curation: TKF and DRR, Project administration: TKF; Visualisation: TKF and DRR, Writing – Original draft: TKF; Writing –Review & editing: TKF, DRR, PJE, RATL, SG, CTWJ, ZD; Supervision: PJE; Funding acquisition: PJE. All authors gave final approval for publication.
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Fung, T., Richards, D.R., Leong, R.A. et al. Litter decomposition and infiltration capacities in soils of different tropical urban land covers. Urban Ecosyst 25, 21–34 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-021-01126-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-021-01126-2