Suspended sections within downed dead wood are drier, have altered decomposer communities, and slower decomposition

The decomposition of dead wood plays a key role in forest carbon emissions. Most pieces of downed dead wood are partially suspended above the forest floor, but how this suspension affects decomposition rates is typically ignored and remains largely unexplored. Here we combine field observations and experimental manipulations to explore how partial suspension of downed wood (i.e., wood debris in contact with the ground) influences decomposer communities and patterns of decomposition in a lowland tropical forest. Experimental manipulations of wood sticks showed that small-scale suspension above the forest floor (ca. 5 cm) slowed decomposition and altered microbial community assembly, regardless of whether the suspended section was connected to a piece of downed wood. Across a 41-year chronosequence of dead trees, the average percent of wood volume suspended above the forest floor decreased during the initial 10 years post-death, but this trend reversed after 10 years, with the oldest l..., , , # Suspended sections within downed dead wood are drier, have altered decomposer communities, and slower decomposition

ReadMe file for data submitted as part of Barrera et al. 2023 publication entitled 'Suspended sections within downed dead wood are drier, have altered decomposer communities, and slower decomposition' in Ecosystems Journal

## Description of the data and file structure

| File Name | Description |
| ------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- |
| 1\_Fungal\_OTUtable.biom | Fungal OTU data table |
| 1\_otu\_table\_mc2\_w\_tax\_no\_pynast\_failures.biom | Fungal OTU table cleaned |
| diversity\_analysis\_20230405.R | R code for analyzing microbial diversity |
| resp...