Researchers have analyzed data from a variety of forests and ecosystems across North America, and discovered general trends in decay rates among all leaves. The scientists devised a mathematical procedure to transform observations of decay into distributions of rates. They found that the shape of the resulting curve is independent of climate, location and leaf composition. However, the details of that shape — the range of rates that it spans, and the mean rate — vary with climatic conditions and plant composition. In general, the scientists found that plant composition determines the range of rates, and that as temperatures increase, all plant matter decays faster.