Litterfall and fine woody debris production and chemistry (DP1.10033.001)

This data product contains the quality-controlled, native sampling resolution data from NEON's Litterfall and fine woody debris sampling. Litter is defined as material that is dropped from the forest canopy and has a butt end diameter <2cm and a length <50 cm; this material is collected in elevated 0.5m2 PVC traps. Fine woody debris is defined as material that is dropped from the forest canopy and has a butt end diameter <2cm and a length >50 cm; this material is collected in ground traps as longer material is not reliably collected by the elevated traps. Following field collection, each sample is sorted by functional group, dried and weighed. After sorting litter by functional group, material from elevated traps from select bouts is sent for chemical analysis, with excess material archived in the NEON Biorepository and available upon request. For additional details, see the user guides, protocols, and science design listed in the Documentation section below. Products resulting from this sampling include mass of litterfall and fine woody debris by functional group as well as litter chemistry and stable isotope ratios. Summary tables of external lab precision and accuracy are included in the expanded package.

Latency:
The expected time from data and/or sample collection in the field to data publication is as follows, for each of the data tables (in days) in the downloaded data package. See the Data Product User Guides for more information.

bgc\_CNiso\_externalSummary: 30

lig_externalSummary: 30

ltr_chemistrySubsampling: 60

ltr_fielddata: 60

ltr_litterCarbonNitrogen: 270

ltr_litterLignin: 180

ltr_massdata: 60

ltr_pertrap: 30