Conclusion
In this study, we investigated the release efficiency of DOC, TDN and TDP of the 12 types of leaf litter from temperate forests. We confirmed that release efficiency was the highest in TDP during early leaf litter decomposition, followed by DOC, and TDN release efficiency was the lowest during the early leaf litter decomposition, regardless of the species. More importantly, we found that the maximal release efficiencies and amount of DOC, TDN and TDP from leaf litter were highly species-specific. Furthermore, we found that the C:P and N:P ratios of the total maximal release amounts were considerably lower than the C:P and N:P ratios in leaf litter biomass, while the C:N ratio of total maximal release amount was higher than the C:N ratio in leaf litter mass. Considering the fact that leaf litter enters ambient aquatic ecosystems, the present results suggest that changes in the vegetations due to factors such as plantations and climate change can alter the relative importance of aquatic detrital and grazing food chains (Prentice et al. 1991, Hirama et al. 2022).