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Decomposition of Shoots of a Salt-Marsh Grass

Methodology and Dynamics of Microbial Assemblages

  • Chapter
Advances in Microbial Ecology

Part of the book series: Advances in Microbial Ecology ((AMIE,volume 13))

Abstract

Researchers interested in accurately describing natural microbial participation in the decay of portions of vascular plants must try to avoid altering genuine conditions of decay via their methods (Swift et al., 1979; Boulton and Boon, 1991; Newell, 1994). This is an old refrain (e.g., Park, 1974, on the elusive balance between particle retention and shredder admittance using litterbags), but one that continues to go unheeded (e.g., a paper published in 1992 in a leading aquatic-science journal; methods: green shoots of grass cut, dried, and placed in litterbags on or buried in salt-marsh sediment). “The challenge of ecology immediately reveals the correlated dangers, for it is singularly easy to fall into error through a failure to describe accurately the various parts of the system and to appreciate their possible significance. An error at this stage may lead to the development of inapposite experimental techniques, so that the final synthesis must inevitably fail. A constant temptation besetting the ecologist is that of loose thinking to enable him to gloss over intractable parts of his study” (Griffin, 1972).

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  1. Marine Institute, University of Georgia, Sapelo Island, Georgia, 31327, USA

    Steven Y. Newell

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    J. Gwynfryn Jones

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Newell, S.Y. (1993). Decomposition of Shoots of a Salt-Marsh Grass. In: Jones, J.G. (eds) Advances in Microbial Ecology. Advances in Microbial Ecology, vol 13. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-2858-6_7

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