PLANT GROWTH-RATE DEPENDENCE OF DETRITAL CARBON STORAGE IN ECOSYSTEMS

Detrital carbon accumulation accounts for most of an ecosystem's capac ity to store organic carbon because the carbon contained as plant detr itus exceeds that stored in living plants by about threefold. A compar ative analysis of the mass and turnover of detrital carbon in ecosyste ms demonstrates that these properties are strongly related to the turn over rate of the dominant primary producers and are poorly related to ecosystem primary production. These results contribute to an understan ding of the factors that control carbon storage in ecosystems and the role of carbon storage in the global carbon budget.