Predicting the Amount of Litterfall in Forests of the World

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Abstract
Total litterfall and leaf litterfall were examined for 389 forest sites throughout the world using multiple regression, considering latitude, altitude and precipitation as predictor variables. In its best model, Ig total litterfall was negatively related (r2 = 0.58) to latitude and altitude, while in the best model for lg leaf litterfall there was a negative relationship (r2 = 0.35) with only one variable, latitude. When tropical forests were considered separately however, lg leaf litterfall was positively related to precipitation, and negatively related to altitude (r2 = 0.43). The predictive power of all the regression equations was low, with large percentage values of scatter about the fitted values for all equations. In addition, there was no relationship between the ratio of non-leaf material to leaf material in the litter with any of the predictor variables.