Abstract
Dead wood is an extremely abundant form of organic matter in some streams. It plays important ecological roles, as it shapes stream channels, retains sediments and litter, and provides food and substrate for organisms, thus contributing to the overall carbon flux in streams. Wood decomposition can be determined by following the mass loss of tagged wood pieces. This chapter presents two alternative approaches: the first based on branches to calculate the total mass of wood decomposed in a reach and the second one using commercially available tongue depressors. In both cases, wood pieces are air-dried, weighed and tied to rebars or roots in streams, and retrieved several months later to determine the ash-free dry mass remaining. Decomposition rate is computed by assuming a negative exponential mass loss model. Reach-level decomposition can be estimated from the breakdown rate of standard wood pieces, if the surface-to-volume ratio of all wood pieces in the reach is measured. Wood and leaf decomposition appear to be driven by similar environmental factors, suggesting that the former can serve as a convenient proxy for the latter, for instance in functional assessments of stream ecosystem integrity.
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Elosegi, A., Arroita, M., Solagaistua, L. (2020). Wood Decomposition. In: Bärlocher, F., Gessner, M., Graça, M. (eds) Methods to Study Litter Decomposition. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30515-4_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30515-4_8
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