Methods to Study Litter Decomposition
Home > Mathematics and Science Textbooks > Biology, life sciences > Life sciences: general issues > Ecological science, the Biosphere > Methods to Study Litter Decomposition: A Practical Guide
Methods to Study Litter Decomposition: A Practical Guide

Methods to Study Litter Decomposition: A Practical Guide


     0     
5
4
3
2
1



Out of Stock


Notify me when this book is in stock
X
About the Book

This edited volume is an extensive collection of methods for investigating plant litter dynamics in ecosystems. Particular emphasis is placed on litter decomposition in streams and rivers. The presented methods range from analyses of chemical and physical litter properties to the taxonomic and functional characterization of microbial decomposers, both fungi and bacteria, assessments of litter-consuming invertebrates, and procedures to determine litter dynamics at the stream ecosystem level. Several chapters addressing general topics of data analysis are also included.  This second edition of the book has been greatly expanded. Its now 63 chapters cover both well-established and recently elaborated techniques, some of which have not yet been applied to decomposing litter in streams. Modern molecular techniques ranging from next-generation sequencing to proteomics receive special attention among the 20 chapters that are entirely new. Numerous methods on characterizing litter consumers have also been added to fill an evident gap of the first edition. However, the basic original concept and all of the previous chapters have been retained, although most of them have been thoroughly updated.  Typical contributions provide step-by-step protocols that are preceded by brief reviews of the ecological significance and the principles underlying the method. Where available, short compilations of published data have been added in overview tables to provide background information on the range of results to expect. Useful hints, a discussion of potential weaknesses, and key references are provided at the end. Hands-on material useful to implement several of the presented methods (e.g. computer code, calculation sheets) is available online.  The book is written for students embarking on studies of plant litter dynamics and for established researchers wishing to expand the scope of their methodological toolbox to study litter decomposition and themicrobial decomposers and invertebrates involved in the process. The primary intended audience is aquatic ecologists, since many of the methods presented in the book focus on streams and stream organisms. However, the great majority of the protocols can be easily adapted or even directly applied to coastal and terrestrial ecosystems. Consequently, they should be of equal interest to scientists investigating plant litter dynamics in habitats such as mangroves and salt-marshes, terrestrial grasslands and forests.

Table of Contents:
Part 1. Litter dynamics: chapter 1.  Litter Input (Arturo Elosegi & Jesús Pozo).- Chapter 2. Leaf Retention (Arturo Elosegi).- chapter 3. Manipulating Litter Retention in Streams (Michael Dobson).- chapter 4. Coarse Benthic Organic Matter (Jesús Pozo & Arturo Elosegi).- chapter5. Leaching (Felix Bärlocher).- Chapter 6. Leaf Mass Loss Estimated by the Litter-Bag Technique (Felix Bärlocher).- Chapter7. Determining Litter Mass Loss by the Plant Tagging Approach (Kevin A. Kuehn & Mark O. Gessner).- Chapter 8. Wood Decomposition (Arturo Elosegi, Maite Arroita & Libe Solagaistua).- Chapter9. Decomposition of Fine Particulate Organic Matter (Yoshimura Chihiro).- Chapter10. Coarse Particulate Organic Matter Budgets (Jesús Pozo & Jon Molinero).- Part 2. Chemical and Physical Leaf Properties. Chapter11. Total Phosphorus, Nitrogen, and Carbon in Leaf Litter (Mogens R. Flindt, Ana I. Lillebø, Javier Pérez & Verónica Ferreira).- Chapter12. Total Protein (Mark O. Baerlocher).- Chapter13. Free Amino Acids (Shawn D. Mansfield & Mark O. Baerlocher).- chapter14. Determination of Total Carbohydrates (Shawn D. Mansfield).- chapter15. Determination of Soluble Carbohydrates (Letitia da Ros, Faride Unda, Shawn D. Mansfield).- Chapter16. Total Lipids (Mark O. Gessner & Paul T. M. Neumann).- Chapter17.  Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Decomposing Leaf Litter (Eric Von Elert).- Chapter18.  Total Phenolics (Felix Bärlocher & Manuel A.S. Graça).- Chapter19. Radial Diffusion Assay for Tannins (Manuel A.S. Graça & Felix Bärlocher).- Chapter20.   Acid Butanol Assay to Determine Bulk Concentrations of Condensed Tannins (Mark O. Gessner & Daniel Steiner).- Chapter21.    Lignin and Cellulose (Mark O. Gessner).- Chapter22. Physical Litter Properties: Leaf Toughness and Tensile Strength (Manuel A.S. Graça & Martin Zimmer).- Part 3. Microbial Decomposers. Chapter23. Techniques for Handling Ingoldian Fungi (Enrique Descals).- Chapter24.     Maintenance of Aquatic Hyphomycete Cultures (Ludmila Marvanová).- Chapter 25.  An Illustrated Key to the Common Temperate Species of Aquatic Hyphomycetes (Vladislav Gulis, Ludmila Marvanová & Enrique Descals).- Chapter26. Sporulation by Aquatic Hyphomycetes (Felix Bärlocher).- Chapter 27. Ergosterol as a Measure of Fungal Biomass (Mark O. Gessner).- Chapter 28. Fungal Growth Rates and Production (Keller Suberkropp, Mark O. Gessner & Kevin A. Kuehn).- Chapter 29.  Bacterial Abundance and Biomass Determination in Plant Litter by Epifluorescence Microscopy (Nanna Buesing & Mark O. Gessner).- Chapter 30. Growth and Production of Litter-Associated Bacteria (Nanna Buesing, Mark O. Gessner & Kevin A. Kuehn).- Chapter 31.     Isolation of Cellulose-Degrading Bacteria (Jürgen Marxsen).- Chapter 32. ATP as a Measure of Microbial Biomass(Manuela Abelho).- Chapter 33. Respiration of Litter-Associated Microbes and Invertebrates (Manuel A.S. Graça & Manuela Abelho).- Part 4. Molecular Microbial Community Analyses. Chapter34. Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (T-Rflp) to Estimate Fungal Diversity (Liliya G. Nikolcheva & Felix Bärlocher).- Chapter 35.  Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) to Estimate Fungal Diversity (Liliya G. Nikolcheva & Felix Bärlocher).- Chapter36.  Quantitative Real-Time PCR (qPCR) to Estimate Molecular Fungal Abundance (Christiane Baschien & J. Steffen C. Carl).- Chapter 37.      Metabarcoding of Litter-associated Fungi and Bacteria (Sofia Duarte, Christian Wurzbacher & Sahadevan Seena).- Chapter 38.   Identifying Active Members of Litter Fungal Communities by Precursor rRNA (Martina Štursová & Petr Baldrian).- Chapter 39.      Gene Expression Analysis of Litter-Associated Fungi UsingRNA-Seq (Elizabeth C. Bourne, Paul R. Johnston, Elisabeth Funk & Michael T. Monaghan).- Chapter 40. Metaproteomics of Litter-associated Fungi (Katharina M. Keiblinger & Katharina Riedel).- Part 5. Enzymatic Capabilities. Chapter 41. Extractellular Fungal Hydrolytic Enzyme Activity (Shawn D. Mansfield).- chapter 42. Cellulases (Martin Zimmer).- Chapter 43. Viscosimetric Determination of Endocellulase Activity (Björn Hendel & Jürgen Marxsen).- Chapter 44. Fluorometric Determination of The Activity of β-Glucosidase and other Extracellular Hydrolytic Enzymes (Björn Hendel & Jürgen Marxsen).- Chapter 45. Pectin-degrading Enzymes: Polygalacturonase and Pectin Lyase (Keller Suberkropp).- chapter 46. Lignin-degrading Enzymes: Phenoloxidase and Peroxidase (Björn Hendel, Robert L. Sinsabaugh & Jürgen Marxsen).- Chapter 47. Phenol Oxidation (Martin Zimmer).- Chapter 48. Proteinase Activity: Azocoll and Thin-layer Enzyme Assay (Manuel A.S. Graça &Felix Bärlocher).- Part 6. Litter Consumers. Chapter 49. Processing of Aquatic Invertebrates Colonizing Decomposing Litter (John S. Richardson).- chapter 50. Identifying Stream Invertebrates as Plant Litter Consumers (Luz Boyero, Richard G. Pearson, Ricardo J. Albariño, Marcos Callisto, Francisco Correa-Araneda, Andrea C. Encalada, Marcelo Moretti, Alonso Ramírez, April Sparkman, Christopher M. Swan, Catherine M. Yule & Manuel A.S. Graça).- chapter 51. Shredder Feeding and Growth Rates (Manuel A.S. Graça & José M. González).- chapter 52. Feeding Preferences (Cristina Canhoto, Manuel A.S. Graça & Felix Bärlocher).- chapter 53. Energy Budget of Shredders (Manuel A.S. Graça).- chapter 54. The Role of Shredders in Litter Dynamics at Stream Scale (José M. González & Manuel A.S. Graça).- Part 7. Litter Manipulations. Chapter 55. Manipulation of Leaf Litter Stoichiometry (Julio Arce-Funck, Vincent Felten, Michael Danger).- Chapter 56. IsotopicLabelling of Leaf-litter Nitrogen (Bernd Zeller, Severine Bienaimé & Etienne Dambrine).- Chapter 57. Decomposition and Consumption Tablets (DECOTABSs) (Gea H. van Der Lee, Ellard R. Hunting, J. Arie Vonk & Michiel H.S. Kraak).- chapter 58. Inoculation of Leaf Litter with Aquatic Hyphomycetes (Eric Chauvet).- Part 8. Data Analyses. Chapter 59. A Primer for Statistical Analysis (Felix Bärlocher).- Chapter 60. Determining Temperature-normalized Decomposition Rates (Mark O. Gessner & Frank Peeters).- Chapter 61. Biodiversity Analysis (Felix Bärlocher).- Chapter 62. A Bioinformatics Primer for the Analysis of Illumina MiSeq Data of Litter-associated Fungi and Bacteria (Sahadevan Seena, Sofia Duarte & Christian Wurzbacher).- Chapter 63. A Primer for Meta-Analysis (Verónica Ferreira & Felix Bärlocher).

About the Author :
Felix Bärlocher is a Research Professor at Mt. Allison University, Sackville, New Brunswick, Canada. He retired from teaching in 2016. He has pioneered and published landmark studies on the ecology of aquatic hyphomycetes, a polyphyletic group of fungi that dominate the decomposition of riparian tree leaves in streams. Additional central research interests are the taxonomy and evolution of aquatic hyphomycetes, molecular approaches to characterize these fungi and trophic interactions with litter-consuming invertebrates.  Mark O. Gessner is Department Head at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) and Professor at the Berlin Institute of Technology (TU Berlin) in Germany. Trained as an aquatic ecosystem scientist, he is widely recognized for his work over 30 years on ecosystem processes, particularly many facets of the decomposition of plant litter in freshwaters, including the role of fungi, bacteria and detritivorous invertebrates, as wellas the importance of changing environmental conditions, biodiversity and human activities in controlling decomposition rates. Manuel A.S. Graça is a Researcher at MARE (Marine & Environmental Sciences Centre) and Professor at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. His extensive work for more than 30 years in Mediterranean and tropical climates has focused on shaded headwater streams, where he investigates particularly the trilogy of leaf litter – microbial decomposers – litter-consuming detritivores and their role in detrital food webs. Studies on anthropogenic impacts on streams and benthic stream invertebrates are also a major long-standing research interest.


Best Sellers


Product Details
  • ISBN-13: 9783030305147
  • Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland AG
  • Publisher Imprint: Springer Nature Switzerland AG
  • Edition: Revised edition
  • Language: English
  • Returnable: Y
  • Width: 155 mm
  • ISBN-10: 3030305147
  • Publisher Date: 31 Jul 2020
  • Binding: Hardback
  • Height: 235 mm
  • No of Pages: 604
  • Sub Title: A Practical Guide


Similar Products

Add Photo
Add Photo

Customer Reviews

REVIEWS      0     
Click Here To Be The First to Review this Product
Methods to Study Litter Decomposition: A Practical Guide
Springer Nature Switzerland AG -
Methods to Study Litter Decomposition: A Practical Guide
Writing guidlines
We want to publish your review, so please:
  • keep your review on the product. Review's that defame author's character will be rejected.
  • Keep your review focused on the product.
  • Avoid writing about customer service. contact us instead if you have issue requiring immediate attention.
  • Refrain from mentioning competitors or the specific price you paid for the product.
  • Do not include any personally identifiable information, such as full names.

Methods to Study Litter Decomposition: A Practical Guide

Required fields are marked with *

Review Title*
Review
    Add Photo Add up to 6 photos
    Would you recommend this product to a friend?
    Tag this Book Read more
    Does your review contain spoilers?
    What type of reader best describes you?
    I agree to the terms & conditions
    You may receive emails regarding this submission. Any emails will include the ability to opt-out of future communications.

    CUSTOMER RATINGS AND REVIEWS AND QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS TERMS OF USE

    These Terms of Use govern your conduct associated with the Customer Ratings and Reviews and/or Questions and Answers service offered by Bookswagon (the "CRR Service").


    By submitting any content to Bookswagon, you guarantee that:
    • You are the sole author and owner of the intellectual property rights in the content;
    • All "moral rights" that you may have in such content have been voluntarily waived by you;
    • All content that you post is accurate;
    • You are at least 13 years old;
    • Use of the content you supply does not violate these Terms of Use and will not cause injury to any person or entity.
    You further agree that you may not submit any content:
    • That is known by you to be false, inaccurate or misleading;
    • That infringes any third party's copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or other proprietary rights or rights of publicity or privacy;
    • That violates any law, statute, ordinance or regulation (including, but not limited to, those governing, consumer protection, unfair competition, anti-discrimination or false advertising);
    • That is, or may reasonably be considered to be, defamatory, libelous, hateful, racially or religiously biased or offensive, unlawfully threatening or unlawfully harassing to any individual, partnership or corporation;
    • For which you were compensated or granted any consideration by any unapproved third party;
    • That includes any information that references other websites, addresses, email addresses, contact information or phone numbers;
    • That contains any computer viruses, worms or other potentially damaging computer programs or files.
    You agree to indemnify and hold Bookswagon (and its officers, directors, agents, subsidiaries, joint ventures, employees and third-party service providers, including but not limited to Bazaarvoice, Inc.), harmless from all claims, demands, and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising out of a breach of your representations and warranties set forth above, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third party.


    For any content that you submit, you grant Bookswagon a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, transferable right and license to use, copy, modify, delete in its entirety, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from and/or sell, transfer, and/or distribute such content and/or incorporate such content into any form, medium or technology throughout the world without compensation to you. Additionally,  Bookswagon may transfer or share any personal information that you submit with its third-party service providers, including but not limited to Bazaarvoice, Inc. in accordance with  Privacy Policy


    All content that you submit may be used at Bookswagon's sole discretion. Bookswagon reserves the right to change, condense, withhold publication, remove or delete any content on Bookswagon's website that Bookswagon deems, in its sole discretion, to violate the content guidelines or any other provision of these Terms of Use.  Bookswagon does not guarantee that you will have any recourse through Bookswagon to edit or delete any content you have submitted. Ratings and written comments are generally posted within two to four business days. However, Bookswagon reserves the right to remove or to refuse to post any submission to the extent authorized by law. You acknowledge that you, not Bookswagon, are responsible for the contents of your submission. None of the content that you submit shall be subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of Bookswagon, its agents, subsidiaries, affiliates, partners or third party service providers (including but not limited to Bazaarvoice, Inc.)and their respective directors, officers and employees.

    Accept

    New Arrivals


    Inspired by your browsing history


    Your review has been submitted!

    You've already reviewed this product!