Detrital ontogenic model including decomposer diversity

Madhumita Roy, Sudipto Mandal and Santanu Ray

Ecological Modelling, 2008, vol. 215, issue 1, 200-206

Abstract: Detritus influences the structure and dynamics of the living species. The quality of detritus tied by the degree of colonization such that it may be more useful in some cases to consider them as grouped entities as higher consumers in detrital branch may not distinguish between the consumption of detritus and micro-organisms that fed on it. Detritus and producer-based food models both suggest that energy supply limits the length of food chains. However, in detrital food chain the amount of dead organic matter is needed to support micro-detritivores (bacteria and fungi) is lower on average than would be required to support physiological and morphologically comparable herbivores in grazing food chain. Many questions concerning detritus and diversity are only recently beginning addressed. These include: (1) what are the factors that determine species richness in detrital communities? (2) How does diversity of detritivores affects key rates and fate of detritus processing and ultimately feed back to producer productivity and ecosystem diversity? (3) How does species diversity of organisms associated with detritus differ at different stages of its ontogeny?

Keywords: Detritus; Recalcitrant; Labile; Fungus; Bacteria; Trophic dynamics; Detritivore; Coexistence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:215:y:2008:i:1:p:200-206

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2008.02.020

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