Dear all, With this email we would like to remind you that it is still join the Tea Bag Index experiment, where we use tea bags to measure decomposition and create a global map.
Together with collaborators of Utrecht University, The Netherlands Institute of Ecology and Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, we developed a method that enables measuring decomposition rates in an extremely cheap and easy way (Keuskamp et al 2013, see download link below this message). The method consists of burying tea bags, and dig them up again after 3 months. As tea is plant material, teabags (those that are sold in plastic mesh bags) are basically standardized litterbags. Moreover, because we use two types of tea, we can characterize two different attributes of the decomposition process (initial decomposition rate and stabilization of the labile fraction). We are currently looking for people that want to dig down tea for us, both on a small scale (a few bags in a few locations) and on a large scale (many locations). With this data we want to construct a global decomposition map, that can for instance be used as input for climate models. The project has run for one year and will continue at least the coming year, and maybe longer. We are especially interested in locations in the middle of USA, Africa and China. We will provide tea for those who like to give a small contribution to this project, whereas contributors with significantly large datasets can apply for co-authorship and are asked to obtain tea themselves. More details on participation can be found in the invitation document that you can download via the wetransfer link: https://we.tl/eGLev7tiLf , that will expire after one week. Feel free to email me for more details ([email protected]). With kind regards, Judith Sarneel
