Sensitivity analysis
We analysed the model sensitivity by varying parameters over two orders of magnitude (as in (Allisonet al. 2010) – except γ M andγ Z for which we used the whole range over which the non-trivial ecosystem equilibrium is stable (Supplementary Table 2). To assess the significance of our findings for real ecosystems, we focused on five sites for which empirical data (German et al. 2012) could be used to constrain the model. The five sites contrast strongly in their initial temperature, T 0, and decomposition kinetics, \(v_{\max}^{D}(T)\) and \(K_{m}^{D}(T)\) for which we selected the Arrhenius equations (equations (2a-d) in Box 1) that best fit the relations used in (German et al. 2012) (Supplementary Table 3).