Table 5.

Output of the most parsimonious model testing for the effects of litter species, litter types, precipitation treatments, forests, time of decomposition, and their interactions on litter mass remaining. D.f. = degrees of freedom, %SS = percentage of sums of squares. F-values and associated p-values are indicated (significant p-values are in bold). Full model: AIC = 3018.15, R² = 0.60; Most parsimonious model: AIC = 2984.35, R² = 0.59.

	d.f.	%SS	F-Value	p-Value
Litter species	2	1.9	9.5	<0.0001
Litter types	1	0.0	0.4	0.518
Precipitation treatments	1	1.6	16.4	<0.0001
Forests	2	4.2	21.6	<0.0001
Time	1	34.0	348.9	<0.0001
Litter species × Litter types	2	0.1	0.7	0.484
Litter species × Precipitation treatments	2	0.0	0.2	0.803
Litter species × Forests	4	2.7	6.8	<0.0001
Litter types × Forests	2	0.6	3	0.053
Precipitation Treatments × Forests	2	0.5	2.5	0.083
Litter species × Time	2	8.3	42.4	<0.0001
Precipitation treatments × Time	1	0.4	4.3	0.039
Forests × Time	2	3.8	19.6	<0.0001
Litter species × Litter types × Forests	4	0.8	2.2	0.073
Litter species × Precipitation treatments × Forest	4	1.0	2.6	0.039
Litter species × Forests × Time	4	1.0	2.6	0.036
Precipitation treatment × Forests × Time	2	0.6	3.2	0.040
Residuals	393	38.3	-	-