Abstract: To understand the effects of typhoon disturbance on the production, composition, temporal dynamics of litter in subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest, a 5-year study from January 2008 to December 2012 on two types of evergreen forests, C. fargesii community and S. superba community, in Tiantong, Zhejiang, was carried out. Average annual litterfall are 6.465 t·hm^-2 and 6.947 t·hm^-2 in C. fargesii community and S. superba community, respectively. Annual litter production and monthly litterfall in typhoon season were both significantly higher in typhoon years than that in normal years. Orders of proportions of different sorts litterfall in the two types of communities are leaves > twigs >detritus >flowers >barks. The total leaves production accounted for about 70% of total litter. Proportion of twigs reached about 17%. Proportion of leaves declined from typhoon years to normal years, while the proportion of twigs had an opposite trend. The dynamics of monthly litter production in both communities followed a bimodal distribution (with peaks in April-May and October-November) in normal years, and trimodal distribution (with an extra peak in typhoon season.) in typhoon years. The dynamic of monthly leaves production was different between the two types of communities in different typhoon years. It had two peaks in C. fargesii community and had three peaks in S. superba community in the years (2008, 2009 and 2011) with weak typhoon disturbance. However, it showed three peaks in both communities in the year (2012) with strong typhoon disturbance. These results suggested that typhoon disturbance can change the dynamics of litterfall in subtropical evergreen forest, and these impactions may various in different types of communities under different strengths of typhoon.

Key words: typhoon disturbance, evergreen broad-leaved, litterfall, temporal dynamics, Tiantong