Article title: The phenology of leaf litter decomposition in aquatic and terrestrial compartments of headwater catchments
Authors: Eva Cereghetti (eva.cereghetti@eawag.ch) & Florian Altermatt (florian.altermatt@ieu.uzh.ch)
Journal: The American Naturalist 
Year: 2025


Leaf litter generally enters ecosystems in annual pulses and is subsequently decomposed across many seasons. Yet, investigations into this process are rarely conducted in parallel in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and over the full year.
Here, we investigated the intra-annual decomposition of leaf litter in temperate streams and forests. Specifically, we assessed the decomposition of leaf litter across a year using repeated litterbag assays at six-weeks intervals.
We quantified differences across time, as well as across leaf species (alder, beech, poplar), ecosystem type (stream vs. forest) and consumer type (microorganisms vs. macroinvertebrates).


Please do not use without citing the original article. 
For questions regarding the data or code contact Eva Cereghetti at eva.cereghetti@eawag.ch or eva.cereghetti@gmail.com.
											


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FieldDeco_R_analyses 
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The script FieldDeco_R_analyses was generated using the following software and package versions 

Software:
R version 4.3.3

Packages:
performance_0.12.2, glmmTMB_1.1.9, DHARMa_0.4.6, patchwork_1.2.0, lmerTest_3.1-3, lme4_1.1-35.1, Matrix_1.6-5,
rstudioapi_0.15.0, plotrix_3.8-4, cowplot_1.1.3, lubridate_1.9.3, forcats_1.0.0, stringr_1.5.1, dplyr_1.1.4,
purrr_1.0.2, readr_2.1.5, tidyr_1.3.1, tibble_3.2.1, ggplot2_3.5.0, tidyverse_2.0.0   



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FieldDeco_dataset 
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The dataset FieldDeco_dataset gives the following variables
											
sample_ID: litter set unique identification number
species: leaf litter species
stream: catchment name
site: site/replicate number
aquatic_terrestrial: ecosystem type
mesh_type: mesh size of the litter bags
deployment_date: date of deplyomente of the litter bags
collection_date: date of collection of the litter bags
round: round of decomposition assay
initial_weight_g: dry weight in grams of the litter set before deployment
end_weight_g: dry weight in grams of the litter set after collection and washing
afdm_proportion: proportion of AFDM of the remaining litter set after decomposition
afdm_g: AFDM in grams remaining after decomposition
mean_amphipods: mean number of amphipos per kicknet at each site



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FieldDeco_HOBO_temperature_clean 
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The FieldDeco_HOBO_temperature_clean dataset gives the following variables

round: round of leaf litter deployment
HOBO_ID: logger identifier
date: date of measurement (dd.mm.yyyy)
time: time of measurement
temperature: temperature measured in degrees Celsius
aquatic_terrestrial: ecosystem type
stream: catchment name
site: site/replicate ID 



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precipitation_data 
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The precipitation_data dataset gives the following variables

station: weather station ID
date: date of the measurement in the format yyyymmdd
precipitation_mm: precipitation in mm
humidity_percent: air humidity in percentage 



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kicknet_data 
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The kicknet_data dataset gives the following variables

stream: catchment name
site: site/replicate number
kicknet: kicknet number
columns 4:33 (amphipods:taeniopterygidae): number of individuals per organism observed
date: sampling date
round: associated round of decomposition assay