Manganese limitation as a mechanism for reduced decomposition in soils under atmospheric nitrogen deposition

We evaluated manganese limitation as a mechanism for reduced lignin and leaf litter decomposition under long-term atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Leaf litter and soils from a long-term nitrogen deposition study were amended with manganese (factorial design, N x Mn). Fungal community composition was evaluated in litter via ITS2 metabarcoding after ~6 months of decomposition in the lab. The ITS2 region was amplified using fungal-specific primers fITS7 and ITS4 and DNA sequencing was conducted by Illumina MiSeq (v2; 2 x 250 bp chemistry).