Phys.org  September 2, 2021 The amount of carbon stored in deadwood is equivalent to about 8 per cent of the global forest carbon stocks. The decomposition of deadwood is largely governed by microorganisms and insects contributing to variations in the decomposition rates. An international team of researchers from a number of countries including Germany and USA conducted a field experiment of wood decomposition across 55 forest sites and 6 continents to show that the deadwood decomposition rates increase with temperature, and the strongest temperature effect is found at high precipitation levels. As a net effect insects accelerate the decomposition in tropical […]