2023 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Conference

March 5-7, 2023 • Cincinnati, OH

5/20/2019 | 12:15 PM - 12:30 PM | REVISITING THE FATE OF DEAD LEAVES IN STREAMS | 250 DE

REVISITING THE FATE OF DEAD LEAVES IN STREAMS

Respiration by stream microorganisms consumes most of the carbon in detritus entering from terrestrial landscapes. A small but vital flux of plant detritus forms the base of the food web and shapes the ecology and biogeochemistry of streams. Traditionally, faster decomposing leaves have been considered to be of higher “quality” suggesting that the entire influence of litter can either be reduced to a one-dimensional relationship between the characteristics of the litter and the performance of a focal organism (or trophic group), or that all organisms and processes respond uniformly. By associating quality with decomposition rate, the “value” of litter increases with its rate of disappearance, regardless of its fate: to higher trophic levels, to sediment organic matter reservoirs, to microbial biomass, to dissolved organic matter, or to the atmosphere as CO2. Moving beyond “quality”, our research tests how litter traits and temperature influence pathways of element flow. Results challenge the commonly held view that slowly decomposing leaves are “poor quality” by demonstrating that some traits that slow decomposition can disproportionately promote C transfer to higher trophic levels, whereas other traits associated with rapidly decomposing litter supports microbial productivity.

Decomposition
Biogeochemistry
Food Webs

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Presenters/Authors

Jane Marks (), Northern Arizona University, jane.marks@nau.edu;