The DOI matches its Crossref record.
A Critique of the Analytical Methods Used in Examining Decomposition Data Obtained From Litter Bags
Open accessAbstract
The study of plant litter decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems commonly employs litter bags to compare the loss of mass among species, among sites, and under various experimental manipulations, or to investigate the process itself. Analysis of the resulting data is quite variable among investigators, and at times inappropriate. Two general analytical approaches to the examination of decomposition data are reviewed. Analysis of variance is useful if the intent is to compare treatment means, but does not directly test hypotheses regarding decomposition rates. If the intent is to determine rate constants, than fitting mathematical models to data is the more appropriate analysis. Single and double exponential models best describe the loss of mass over time with an element of biological realism. See full-text article at JSTOR
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cited by
Aerts, R. (1997) · Oikos · doi:10.2307/3546886 · Cited by 1,786
The Role of Microarthropods in Decomposition and Mineralization Processes
Seastedt, T. R. (1984) · Annual Review of Entomology · doi:10.1146/annurev.en.29.010184.000325 · Cited by 1,020
Freschet, G. T., Pagès, L., Iversen, C. M., Comas, L. H., Rewald, B., Roumet, C., Klimešová, J., Zadworny, M., Poorter, H., Postma, J. A., et al. (2021) · New Phytologist · doi:10.1111/nph.17572 · Cited by 668
Forest Litter Decomposition in Relation to Soil Nitrogen Dynamics and Litter Quality
McClaugherty, C. A., Pastor, J., Aber, J. D., & Melillo, J. M. (1985) · Ecology · doi:10.2307/1941327 · Cited by 593
Decomposition patterns for foliar litter – A theory for influencing factors
Berg, B. (2014) · Soil Biology and Biochemistry · doi:10.1016/j.soilbio.2014.08.005 · Cited by 381
Metadata
- Authors
- Wider, R. K., & Lang, G. E.
- Venue
- Ecology
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1982-12
- Volume
- 63
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 1636
- ISSN
- 0012-9658 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2079902815
- Cited by
- 987
- References
- 0
- FWCI
- 24.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: A Critique of the Analytical Methods Used in Examining Decomposition Data Obtained From Litter Bags. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.2307/1940104
- The paper
- Wider, R. K., & Lang, G. E. (1982). A Critique of the Analytical Methods Used in Examining Decomposition Data Obtained From Litter Bags. Ecology. https://doi.org/10.2307/1940104
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
