Seasonal Leaf Litter Breakdown Rates in 11 Tropical Headwater Streams

A year-round field experiment conducted in 11 tropical headwater streams across the Atlantic forest, Cerrado, and Amazon forest biomes. The dataset, authored by José F. Gonçalves Júnior and last updated in May 2026, quantifies intra-annual variation in litter breakdown rates alongside biological and environmental variables. It is a 69.8 KB XLSX file available under a CC-BY-4.0 license.

Use Cases

• Modeling seasonal decomposition dynamics based on monthly incubation data.
• Analyzing the relationship between litter breakdown rates and environmental drivers like precipitation and temperature.
• Investigating the role of biological factors such as fungal biomass and detritivore density on organic matter processing.
• Comparing carbon and nutrient cycling patterns across different tropical forest and savanna biomes.

Strengths

• Data spans a full year with monthly incubations, capturing seasonal variation.
• Covers 11 distinct stream sites across three major tropical biomes (Atlantic forest, Cerrado, Amazon).
• Includes measurements of both biological (e.g., fungal biomass) and environmental (e.g., litter C:N ratio) control variables.

Limitations

• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• The dataset is small (69.8 KB), indicating a limited scope of records.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Year-long field experiment using monthly incubations of naturally mixed leaf litter.

Time Range

One year (specific years not stated).

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 23:01:24; freshness should be verified.

Geography

11 headwater streams in the Atlantic forest, Cerrado, and Amazon forest biomes.