The dry-weight losses of samples of oak and ash litter, enclosed in nylon hairnets and placed on two sites with contrasting humus forms, a mull and a moder, have been followed for a period of 14 months. Sub-samples of the same oak litter disappear at similar rates on the two sites. Sub-samples of the same ash litter disappear at different rates on the two sites, but always more quickly than oak litter. On the mull site the loss of whole ash leaflets as well as fragments of leaflets is considerable whereas oak leaves on both sites and ash leaflets on the moder site disappear mainly as small fragments. For both oak and ash litter the results from the mull site are more variable than those from the moder site, suggesting that there are differences in the heterotrophic activity on the two sites.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. British Ecological Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Ecology.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.