Data from: The cover uncovered: bark control over wood decomposition

1. Woody debris (WD) represents a globally significant carbon stock and its decomposition returns nutrients to the soil while providing habitat to microbes, plants and animals. Understanding what drives WD decomposition is therefore important. 2. WD decomposition rates differ greatly among species. However, the role of bark in the process remains poorly known. 3. We ask how, and how much, interspecific variation in bark functional traits related to growth and protection have afterlife effects on the decomposition of wood, partly mediated by animals. We examine the roles of bark cover and bark traits throughout the wood decomposition process. 4. Synthesis. We find that: (i) bark effects on WD decomposition are species- and wood size-specific, (ii) bark can enhance coarser WD decomposition but slows twig decomposition in some species, and (iii) bark acts as an environmental filter to faunal assemblages in the early stage of wood decomposition. We highlight the need to account for bark effects on WD decomposition and offer an important complementary contribution to including woody species identity effects in biogeochemical and climate-change models via species bark traits.,Case study twig with and no bark R script fileThis file is the R script recording analyses conducted on the case study.Dossa et al the cover uncover bark role in wood decomposition case study twig with and no bark.RCase study twig decomposition dataThis represents the data set for the twigs decomposition reported in the case study. In total, 15 species were used and details are in the paper supplementary material.Chongqing_twig_data.csvCase study bark decomposition dataThis represents the data of the bark removed from twig used for bark decomposition. The bark litter was collected from 15 different species.Chongqing_bark_data.csvCase study twig decay rate k valuesThis data is a compilation of twig data from the case study with the decay rate (k) values obtained after using non-least -squared (nls) functiontwig_k.csvCase study bark decay rate k valuesThis data is a compilation of twig's bark data from the case study with bark's decay rate (k) values obtained after from using non-least -squared (nls) functionbark_k.csvTwig with bark and twig without bark decomposition Figure 4AThis represents the decay rate k values of twig with bark and twig without bark obtained after least squared means (lsmeans) based on best model.Twig_with_tiwg_without_bark_lmeans_posthoc_results_reduced_for_plotting.csvBark and twig without bark lmeans posthoc results reduced for plotting Figure 4BThis represents the decay rate k values of bark and twig without bark obtained after least squared means (lsmeans).Bark_twig_without_bark_lmeans_posthoc_results_reduced_for_plotting.csv,