A new Yale-led study challenges the long-held assumption
that climate is the primary driver of how quickly organic matter decomposes in
different regions, a key piece of information used in formulating climate models.
In a long-term analysis conducted across several sites in
the eastern United States, a team of researchers found that local factors —
from levels of fungal colonization to the specific physical locations of the
wood — play a far greater role than climate in wood decomposition rates and the
subsequent impacts on regional carbon cycling.