Extended Data Fig. 4: Model evaluation against independent data.

Comparison of 157 independent observations of annual deadwood decomposition rates measured for larger diameter wood in previous deadwood surveys²⁷ (red dots) with the predictions from our model for the same locations (blue triangles). Lines indicate the relationship between the decomposition rate and mean annual temperature from Harmon et al.²⁷ (red dashed line; k = 0.0184e^{0.0787×temperature}) and for our model (blue line; k = 0.0171e^{0.0812×temperature}). Good correspondence of both curves indicates that our models of global carbon release from deadwood provide robust estimates despite being based on experimental deadwood with a diameter of around 3 cm (for detailed discussion, see Supplementary Information section 1).