Plant litter chemistry at distinct stages of decomposition across LTER sites

These data were generated in a cross-LTER synthesis of litter chemical content throughout the process of litter decomposition. Despite the decades of litterbag studies, the trajectories of litter chemical changes during decay are not well described, given that most studies measure only initial litter chemistry. Further, inconsistency in which chemical parameters are measured and other methodological differences make it difficult to draw conclusions about the patterns of litter chemical change across studies, and therefore across ecosystems and plant functional types. To address these knowledge gaps, we built a dataset of a comprehensive and consistent set of litter chemical parameters in litter from a diversity of plant functional types that were decomposed across different ecosystems of the U.S. In addition to using existing chemical data, this project analyzed archived samples from previously performed litterbag studies to fill gaps of analytes not previously measured. For this, archived litterbag samples were collected from researchers across LTER sites, as well as a couple non-LTER sites, selecting the samples for plant species decomposed in their native habitat, without experimental treatments, that represented initial litter (100% mass remaining) and targeted stages throughout decay: 75% ,50%, and 30% mass remaining. We then measured 18 chemical parameters spanning macro- and micro-nutrients, structural compounds such as lignin, and metabolic compounds such as proteins, lipids, and carbohydrates.