Parton co-author in Science Magazine article on nitrogen release from rotting leaf litter

The researchers found that the dominant drivers of nitrogen release were the initial concentration of nitrogen and the remaining mass of the leaf and root litter. The equations and how the researchers developed them are described in the Jan. 19 issue of the journal, "Science."

"The most important component of this study is that we've developed a generic global law that can predict large-scale patterns in litter mass decay rates and nitrogen release from litter," said William Parton, senior research scientist at the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory at Colorado State University and co-lead author of the study. "There are a lot of global nutrient cycling models out there, but the model we've developed is based on only two parameters and thus is more scientifically elegant and more widely applicable than the models currently being used."

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