Identification

Title

Understanding the dominant controls on litter decomposition

Abstract

Litter decomposition is a biogeochemical process fundamental to element cycling within ecosystems, influencing plant productivity, species composition and carbon storage. Climate has long been considered the primary broad-scale control on litter decomposition rates, yet recent work suggests that plant litter traits may predominate. Both decomposition paradigms, however, rely on inferences from cross-biome litter decomposition studies that analyse site-level means. We re-analyse data from a classical cross-biome study to demonstrate that previous research may falsely inflate the regulatory role of climate on decomposition and mask the influence of unmeasured local-scale factors. Using the re-analysis as a platform, we advocate experimental designs of litter decomposition studies that involve high within-site replication, measurements of regulatory factors and processes at the same local spatial grain, analysis of individual observations and biome-scale gradients. We question the assumption that climate is the predominant regulator of decomposition rates at broad spatial scales. We propose a framework for a new generation of studies focused on factoring local-scale variation into the measurement and analysis of soil processes across broad scales. Such efforts may suggest a revised decomposition paradigm and ultimately improve confidence in the structure, parameter estimates and hence projections of biogeochemical models.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7zw1ndd

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact