litterfitter: methods for fitting curves to litter decomposition trajectories

There is a long tradition of studying the flux of carbon from the biosphere to the atmosphere by following a particular cohort of litter (wood, leaves, roots, or other organic material) through time. The resulting data are mass remaining and time. A variety of functional forms may be used to fit the resulting data. Some work better empirically. Some are better connected to a process-based understanding. Some have a small number of free parameters; others have more. This package matches decomposition data to a set of these curves using likelihood--based fitting.

References

Cornwell, W. K., and J. T. Weedon. (2013). Decomposition trajectories of diverse litter types: a model selection analysis. Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

Manzoni, S., Pineiro, G., Jackson, R. B., Jobbagy, E. G., Kim, J. H., & Porporato, A. (2012). Analytical models of soil and litter decomposition: Solutions for mass loss and time-dependent decay rates. Soil Biology and Biochemistry, 50, 66-76.

See also

Useful links:

• https://github.com/traitecoevo/litterfitter/issues

• http://traitecoevo.github.io/litterfitter/

• Report bugs at https://github.com/traitecoevo/litterfitter/issues

Author

Maintainer: Will Cornwell wcornwell@gmail.com (ORCID)

Authors:

• James Weedon

Other contributors:

• Guofang Liu [contributor]