Fig. 1: Global pattern of bark decomposition rates.

a Geographic distribution of the locations included in this analysis. Different shapes indicate the types of biome where the specific study sites are located, and different colors indicate the four functional groups. The size of the circle is proportional to the sample size for bark decomposition. b The spatial distributions of locations across the Whittaker biomes along climatic gradients. Bark k (Mean ± SE, year⁻¹) varies with (c) biomes and (d) functional groups at the global scale. Values attached to each bar indicate the n number of observations in each category. Bars that do not share any letters in (c) or (d) are significantly different from one another at level p < 0.05.