Litter accumulation and fire risks show direct and indirect climate-dependence at continental scale.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 36934100.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-023-37166-9 and PMC identifier 10024763.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Litter decomposition / accumulation are rate limiting steps in soil formation, carbon sequestration, nutrient cycling and fire risk in temperate forests, highlighting the importance of robust predictive models at all geographic scales. Using a data set for the Australian continent, we show that among a range of models, >60% of the variance in litter mass over a 40-year time span can be accounted for by a parsimonious model with elapsed time, and indices of aridity and litter quality, as independent drivers. Aridity is an important driver of variation across large geographic and climatic ranges while litter quality shows emergent properties of climate-dependence. Up to 90% of variance in litter mass for individual forest types can be explained using models of identical structure. Results provide guidance for future decomposition studies. Algorithms reported here can significantly improve accuracy and reliability of predictions of carbon and nutrient dynamics and fire risk.