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<front>
<journal-meta>
<journal-id journal-id-type="publisher">ESSDD</journal-id>
<journal-title-group>
<journal-title>Earth System Science Data Discussions</journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="publisher">ESSDD</abbrev-journal-title>
<abbrev-journal-title abbrev-type="nlm-ta">Earth Syst. Sci. Data Discuss.</abbrev-journal-title>
</journal-title-group>
<issn pub-type="epub">1866-3591</issn>
<publisher><publisher-name></publisher-name>
<publisher-loc>Göttingen, Germany</publisher-loc>
</publisher>
</journal-meta>
<article-meta>
<article-id pub-id-type="doi">10.5194/essd-2026-190</article-id>
<title-group>
<article-title>30 years of course particulate organic matter exports from tropical montane watersheds</article-title>
</title-group>
<contrib-group><contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Rodriguez-Cardona</surname>
<given-names>Bianca M.</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4792-7351</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff2">
<sup>2</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
<contrib contrib-type="author" xlink:type="simple"><name name-style="western"><surname>Heartsill-Scalley</surname>
<given-names>Tamara</given-names>
<ext-link>https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0550-4147</ext-link>
</name>
<xref ref-type="aff" rid="aff1">
<sup>1</sup>
</xref>
</contrib>
</contrib-group><aff id="aff1">
<label>1</label>
<addr-line>USDA FS International Institute of Tropical Forestry, San Juan, 00926, Puerto Rico</addr-line>
</aff>
<aff id="aff2">
<label>2</label>
<addr-line>Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences, Atlanta, 30309, Georgia</addr-line>
</aff>
<pub-date pub-type="epub">
<day>04</day>
<month>05</month>
<year>2026</year>
</pub-date>
<volume>2026</volume>
<fpage>1</fpage>
<lpage>16</lpage>
<permissions>
<copyright-statement>Copyright: &#x000a9; 2026 Bianca M. Rodriguez-Cardona</copyright-statement>
<copyright-year>2026</copyright-year>
<license license-type="open-access">
<license-p>This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit <ext-link ext-link-type="uri"  xlink:href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</ext-link></license-p>
</license>
</permissions>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-190/">This article is available from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-190/</self-uri>
<self-uri xlink:href="https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-190/essd-2026-190.pdf">The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2026-190/essd-2026-190.pdf</self-uri>
<abstract>
<p>Leaf litter is an important energy source for aquatic food webs and biogeochemical cycles. As leaf litter from the watershed enters streams it slowly starts to break down and transform into course particulate organic matter (CPOM). While this has been extensively explored in temperate regions, many questions remain in the tropics about patterns, timing, and magnitudes of CPOM inputs. Here we present 30 years of continuous CPOM data collected in two streams of the Bisley Experimental Watersheds (BEW) in the Luquillo Experimental Forest in northeastern Puerto Rico. We report CPOM as litterflow, which is all the plant and organic material that flows and accumulates from multiple sources (i.e., canopy, riparian zone, and upstream) and is collected at a fixed location in each stream. In this long-term dataset, temporal patterns (peaks and seasonality) can be observed in relation to various hurricanes and drought periods that occurred in Puerto Rico. The BEW litterflow data provides a view into the inherent connection between terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems to better understand how organic material can move through the landscape to be exported in streams and transported downriver to sustain the food webs of receiving bodies of water.</p>
</abstract>
<counts><page-count count="16"/></counts>
</article-meta>
</front>
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