Figure 3:

Tea mass loss and decomposition metrics were comparable to other sites across the tundra. Points and whiskers represent site-specific medians and 95 % quantiles, respectively, of a) relative mass loss in the two litter types and b) decomposition rate constantk and stabilisation factor S . White diamonds and coloured whiskers show values for this study, while grey dots and whiskers show values from 11 other sites across the tundra (Table S2; Thomas et al. 2023). Note that axes are truncated at the lower end.
We found that the micro-environmental predictors explained little variation in tea mass loss and decomposition metrics (Figure 4). While we observed some differences in the importance of environmental predictors for decomposition between the two tea types, the overall predictive power was low (Figure 4a). Specifically, Green Tea mass loss was lower in warmer soils (p < 0.01) and was typically greater with higher soil moisture, though the relationship was not significant (p = 0.15). Green Tea mass loss did not vary significantly with community leaf traits or soil characteristics (Figure 4a). None of the environmental factors predicted variation in Rooibos Tea mass loss (Figure 4a) and we observed no particular spatial patterns in mass loss for either litter type (Figure S4).