Improving litterfall production prediction in China under variable environmental conditions using machine learning algorithms

Litterfall production is a major process within forest ecosystems that plays a crucial role in the global carbon cycle. Accordingly, studies have explored the abiotic and biotic features that influence litterfall production. In addition to traditional statistical models, the rapid development of nonparametric and nonlinear machine learning models, such as random forest (RF), light gradient boosting machine (LightGBM), and categorical boosting (CatBoost), have provided new methods of predicting the production of forest litterfall. Here, we evaluated the ability of the abovementioned models and mixed effect random forest (MERF) models to predict total annual litterfall production-based on several abiotic and biotic features-using 968 records from 314 forest sites covering the full geographical range of Chinese forests. In general, machine learning models were found to outperform linear mixed models. In particular, the MERF models ranked the highest in terms of performance (R² = 0.7), which may be attributed to their ability to characterize nonlinear relationships between features and litterfall production. The key drivers were climate-related features and forest age, with the mean annual temperature and age positively correlated with litterfall production. Furthermore, the correlation between forest type and litterfall production was more significant for needleleaf forests than for other forest types. For needleleaf and broadleaf forests in several regions in China, the future litterfall production was predicted to be the highest under IPCC representative concentration pathway (RCP) 8.5, followed by RCP 4.5, RCP 2.6, and the original scenarios (sample data). Improved models to better understand and estimate litterfall production in forests at present and in the future are required for forest management planning to minimize the negative impacts of climate change on forest ecosystems.