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Incorporating dead material in ecosystem assessments and projections

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When considering how ecosystems will react to climate change the importance of dead matter has been largely overlooked. Here we discuss why dead material is integral to ecosystem form and function, and why its persistence or degradation must be explicitly included in models considering ecosystem futures in a rapidly changing world.

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Fig. 1: Concept image of varied impacts of different climate stressors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Kelsey Archer Barnhill, J. Murray Roberts, Isla Myers-Smith, Mathew Williams, Kyle G. Dexter, Casey Ryan & Sebastian J. Hennige

  2. Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Kyle G. Dexter

  3. School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, Institute of Mechanical, Process and Energy Engineering, Heriot–Watt University, Edinburgh, UK

    Uwe Wolfram

Authors
  1. Kelsey Archer Barnhill
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  2. J. Murray Roberts
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  3. Isla Myers-Smith
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  4. Mathew Williams
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  5. Kyle G. Dexter
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  6. Casey Ryan
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  7. Uwe Wolfram
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  8. Sebastian J. Hennige
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Contributions

All authors contributed to manuscript conceptualization. K.A.B. led initial draft and figure preparation, and all authors contributed to manuscript writing, editing and reviewing. U.W. and S.H. contributed equally.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sebastian J. Hennige.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Barnhill, K.A., Roberts, J.M., Myers-Smith, I. et al. Incorporating dead material in ecosystem assessments and projections. Nat. Clim. Chang. 13, 113–115 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-022-01565-5

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