Plant litter decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems involves the physical and chemical breakdown of organic matter. Development of databases is a promising tool for achieving a predictive understanding of organic matter degradation at regional and global scales. In this paper, we present aridec, a comprehensive open database containing litter mass loss data from aridlands across the world. We describe in detail the structure of the database and discuss general patterns in the data. Then, we explore what are the most appropriate model structures to integrate with data on litter decomposition from the database by conducting a collinearity analysis. The database includes 184 entries from aridlands across the world, representing a wide range of climates. For the majority of the data gathered in aridec, it is possible to fit models of litter decomposition that consider initial organic matter as a homogenous reservoir (one pool models), as well as models with two distinct types of organic compounds that decompose at different speeds (two pool models). Moreover, these two carbon pools can either decompose without interaction (parallel models) or with matter transfer from a labile pool to a slowly decomposing pool after transformation (series models). Although most entries in the database can be used to fit these models, we suggest that potential users of this database test identifiability for each individual case as well as the number of degrees of freedom. Other model applications that are not discussed in this publication might also be suitable for use with this database. Lastly, we give some recommendations for future decomposition studies to be potentially added to this database. The extent of the information included in aridec in addition to its open-science approach makes it a great platform for future collaborative efforts in the field of aridland biogeochemistry. The aridec version 1.0.2 is archived and publicly available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6600345 (Sarquis et al., 2022), and the database is managed under a version-controlled system and centrally stored in GitHub (https://github.com/AgustinSarquis/aridec, last access: 31 May 2022).

中文翻译：

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Aridec：一个开放的全球干旱地区垃圾质量损失数据库，提供合适的模型应用建议

陆地生态系统中的植物凋落物分解涉及有机物的物理和化学分解。数据库的开发是一种很有前途的工具，可以在区域和全球范围内实现对有机物降解的预测性理解。在本文中，我们介绍 了aridec，这是一个全面的开放数据库，其中包含来自世界各地干旱地区的垃圾质量损失数据。我们详细描述了数据库的结构并讨论了数据中的一般模式。然后，我们通过进行共线性分析，探索与数据库中垃圾分解数据集成的最合适的模型结构。该数据库包括来自世界各地干旱地区的 184 个条目，代表了广泛的气候。对于收集的大部分数据阿里德克，可以拟合将初始有机物视为同质水库的垃圾分解模型（一个池模型），以及具有两种不同类型有机化合物以不同速度分解的模型（两个池模型）。此外，这两个碳库可以在没有相互作用的情况下分解（平行模型），也可以在转化后将物质从不稳定的库转移到缓慢分解的库中（系列模型）。尽管数据库中的大多数条目都可用于拟合这些模型，但我们建议该数据库的潜在用户测试每个个案的可识别性以及自由度的数量。本出版物中未讨论的其他模型应用程序也可能适用于该数据库。最后，我们为将来可能添加到该数据库中的分解研究提供了一些建议。包含的信息范围aridec除了其开放的科学方法外，还使其成为未来在干旱地区生物地球化学领域开展合作的绝佳平台。aridec版本 1.0.2 存档并在 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6600345（Sarquis 等人，2022 年）公开提供，数据库在版本控制系统下管理并集中存储在 GitHub 中（https://github.com/AgustinSarquis/aridec，最后访问时间：2022 年 5 月 31 日）。