"Patterns of herbivory and decomposition in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems." by J. Cebrian and J. Lartigue

5. We did not find many reports with concomitant values of detrital production and nutrient concentrations in producer detritus, or values of decomposition and nutrient concentrations in producer detritus.  Therefore, to test the independence between detrital production and producer nutritional quality (Fig. 8), and between decomposition and producer nutritional quality (Fig. 10), we used values of nutrient concentration in producer biomass or detritus indistinctly (columns 20^th and 21^st )   The results should be similar to those obtained if we had only used concentrations in producer detritus, because, for a given type of ecosystem, nutrient concentrations do not differ between producer biomass and detritus (see Figures 1b, c and 6c, d).

7. In the reports marked with $, decomposition rates referring to different compartments (e.g. leaves and stems; above- and below-ground) have been weighted and averaged into a single value for the relationship between decomposition rates and detrital production (Figure 11b).  Similarly, in the same reports values of nutrient concentration in producer detritus referring to different compartments have been weighted and averaged into a single value for the relationships between producer nutrient concentration and detrital production (Figure 8)  and producer nutrient concentration and decomposition (Figure 10).  Thus, to avoid redundancies, those mean values have been ignored in the histograms (Figures 6c, d and e) and relationship between decomposition rates and detritus nutrient concentrations (Figure 9).