**5. Conclusions**

In conclusion, we have presented an experimental and field-observational snapshot of nutrient dynamics within a typical eucalypt forest community from southern Australia. We have demonstrated the importance of understanding litter decomposition, but also the need to quantify how different sources of N can impact N availability and cycling. Repeated sampling across a larger range of seasons in Tasmanian eucalypt forests (including wet and dry periods) would be important to provide a temporal component to a spatially complex process. Our results also highlight the difficulty in defining ecosystem processes and function using any single mechanism in forests—even one so apparently clear cut as N availability—because of the many processes that ultimately interact to determine the size of trees and relative abundance of species.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/10/4/340/s1, Figure S1: Phosphorous content in the soil from the nine sites surveyed for soil samples, Table S1: Proportion of basal area (relative to the total basal area of each site) for each species present in the field 24 sites, Table S2: Summary statistics of key characteristics within each of the 24 field sites surveyed, Table S3: Data on soil nutrient availability from the soil samples taken from each of the subset of nine sites that were subject to soil profiling, Table S4: Data on soil nutrient mineralisation from the soil samples taken from each of the nine soil-sampling sites. Abbreviations given in the footnote.

**Author Contributions:** J.C.B. and M.J.H. conceived and designed the experiments; J.C.B. performed the experiments; B.W.B., J.C.B, and E.M.R. analysed the data; and all authors contributed to the manuscript drafts and writing and gave final approval for publication.

**Funding:** This work was funded by Australian Research Council gran<sup>t</sup> FL160100101.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
