Litterfall is a crucial component of the nutrient cycle in forest ecosystems. Through litterfall, nutrients are transported from trees to the soil. The decomposition of litter is an essential process for forests, as it makes nutrients available for the uptake by plants. The rate at which litter decomposes depends not only on climatic conditions but also on the composition of the litter.

Within the Level II programme, litterfall is collected in traps, sorted into its components, and analyzed for its chemical composition. The components differ in their nutrient content. As can be visualized with the app, leaf and needle litter have higher contents than wood and bark for all nutrients. There are also differences between tree species. For example, a comparison shows that the leaf litter of beech has higher nutrient contents than the needle litter of pine.

At this time, the application is only available in German.

The application allows for the visualization of the distribution of the nutrients nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P),potassium (K), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and sulfur (S) in the litter samples of the Level II network. The box plot diagram shows the median (black line), the range from the lower to the upper quartile (green box), and the two extreme values (dashed line). Since the nutrients differ greatly in their value ranges, the slider below the figure allows for the adjustment of the y-axis.

Tree species and litter fractions can be compared with each other or the average values of all selected samples can be displayed. The "Compare" buttons allow switching between the two options. If all tree species are displayed together, mixed samples are also included in the display. The litter is divided into the following fractions leaf/needle litter, fruits (e.g. beechnuts or pine cones), others (e.g., flowers, mosses or lichens) and total samples, which also contain unsorted mixed samples.