The primary objective of this book is to provide students and laboratory instructors at universities and professional ecologists with a broad range of established methods to study plant litter decomposition. Detailed protocols for direct use in the field or laboratory are presented in an easy to follow step-by-step format. A short introduction to each protocol reviews the ecological significance and principles of the technique and points to key references.

<p>Preface</p><p>Foreword</p><p>Part 1. Litter dynamics</p><p> </p><p>1.      Litter Input (Arturo Elosegi & Jesús Pozo)</p><p>2.      Leaf Retention (Arturo Elosegi)</p><p>3.      Manipulating Litter Retention in Streams (Michael Dobson)</p><p>4.      Coarse Benthic Organic Matter (Jesús Pozo & Arturo Elosegi)</p><p>5.      Leaching (Felix Bärlocher)</p><p>6.      Leaf Mass Loss Estimated by the Litter-Bag Technique (Felix Bärlocher)</p><p>7.      Determining Litter Mass Loss by the Plant Tagging Approach (Kevin A. Kuehn & Mark O. Gessner)</p><p>8.      Wood Decomposition (Arturo Elosegi, Maite Arroita & Libe Solagaistua)</p><p>9.      Decomposition of Fine Particulate Organic Matter (Yoshimura Chihiro)</p>10.  Coarse Particulate Organic Matter Budgets (Jesús Pozo & Jon Molinero)<p></p><p> </p><p>Part 2. Chemical and Physical Leaf Properties</p><p> </p><p>11.  Total Phosphorus, Nitrogen, and Carbon in Leaf Litter (Mogens R. Flindt, Ana I. Lillebø, Javier Pérez & Verónica Ferreira)</p><p>12.  Total Protein (Mark O. Baerlocher)</p><p>13.  Free Amino Acids (Shawn D. Mansfield & Mark O. Baerlocher)</p><p>14.  Determination of Total Carbohydrates (Shawn D. Mansfield)</p><p>15.  Determination of Soluble Carbohydrates (Letitia da Ros, Faride Unda, Shawn D. Mansfield) </p><p>16.  Total Lipids (Mark O. Gessner & Paul T. M. Neumann)</p><p>17.  Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids in Decomposing Leaf Litter (Eric Von Elert)</p><p>18.  Total Phenolics (Felix Bärlocher & Manuel A.S. Graça)</p><p>19.  Radial Diffusion Assay for Tannins (Manuel A.S. Graça & Felix Bärlocher)</p><p>20.  Acid Butanol Assay to Determine Bulk Concentrations of Condensed Tannins (Mark O. Gessner & Daniel Steiner)</p><p>21.  Lignin and Cellulose (Mark O. Gessner)</p><p>22.  Physical Litter Properties: Leaf Toughness and Tensile Strength (Manuel A.S. Graça & Martin Zimmer)</p><p> </p><p>Part 3. Microbial Decomposers</p><p> </p><p>23.  Techniques for Handling Ingoldian Fungi (Enrique Descals)</p><p>24.  Maintenance of Aquatic Hyphomycete Cultures (Ludmila Marvanová)</p><p>25.  An Illustrated Key to the Common Temperate Species of Aquatic Hyphomycetes (Vladislav Gulis, Ludmila Marvanová & Enrique Descals)</p><p>26.  Sporulation by Aquatic Hyphomycetes (Felix Bärlocher)</p><p>27.  Ergosterol as a Measure of Fungal Biomass (Mark O. Gessner)</p><p>28.  Fungal Growth Rates and Production (Keller Suberkropp, Mark O. Gessner & Kevin A. Kuehn)</p><p>29.  Bacterial Abundance and Biomass Determination in Plant Litter by Epifluorescence Microscopy (Nanna Buesing & Mark O. Gessner)</p><p>30.  Growth and Production of Litter-Associated Bacteria (Nanna Buesing, Mark O. Gessner & Kevin A. Kuehn)</p><p>31.  Isolation of Cellulose-Degrading Bacteria (Jürgen Marxsen)</p><p>32.  ATP as a Measure of Microbial Biomass (Manuela Abelho)</p><p>33.  Respiration of Litter-Associated Microbes and Invertebrates (Manuel A.S. Graça & Manuela Abelho) </p><p> </p><p>Part 4. Molecular Microbial Community Analyses</p><p> </p><p>34.  Terminal Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (T-Rflp) to Estimate Fungal Diversity (Liliya G. Nikolcheva & Felix Bärlocher)</p><p>35.  Denaturing Gradient Gel Electrophoresis (DGGE) to Estimate Fungal Diversity (Liliya G. Nikolcheva & Felix Bärlocher)</p>36.  Quantitative Real-Time PCR (qPCR) to Estimate Molecular Fungal Abundance (Christiane Baschien & J. Steffen C. Carl)<p></p><p>37.  Metabarcoding of Litter-associated Fungi and Bacteria (Sofia Duarte, Christian Wurzbacher & Sahadevan Seena)</p><p>38.  Identifying Active Members of Litter Fungal Communities by Precursor rRNA (Martina Stursová & Petr Baldrian)</p><p>39.  Gene Expression Analysis of Litter-Associated Fungi Using RNA-Seq (Elizabeth C. Bourne, Paul R. Johnston, Elisabeth Funk & Michael T. Monaghan)</p><p>40.  Metaproteomics of Litter-associated Fungi (Katharina M. Keiblinger & Katharina Riedel)</p><p> </p><p>Part 5. Enzymatic Capabilities</p><p> </p><p>41.  Extractellular Fungal Hydrolytic Enzyme Activity (Shawn D. Mansfield)</p><p>42.  Cellulases (Martin Zimmer)</p><p>43.  Viscosimetric Determination of Endocellulase Activity (Björn Hendel & Jürgen Marxsen)</p><p>44.  Fluorometric Determination of The Activity of beta-Glucosidase and other Extracellular Hydrolytic Enzymes (Björn Hendel & Jürgen Marxsen)</p><p>45.  Pectin-degrading Enzymes: Polygalacturonase and Pectin Lyase (Keller Suberkropp)</p><p>46.  Lignin-degrading Enzymes: Phenoloxidase and Peroxidase (Björn Hendel, Robert L. Sinsabaugh & Jürgen Marxsen)</p><p>47.  Phenol Oxidation (Martin Zimmer)</p><p>48.  Proteinase Activity: Azocoll and Thin-layer Enzyme Assay (Manuel A.S. Graça & Felix Bärlocher)</p><p> </p><p>Part 6. Litter Consumers</p><p> </p><p>49.  Processing of Aquatic Invertebrates Colonizing Decomposing Litter (John S. Richardson)</p>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)<p></p><p>51.  Shredder Feeding and Growth Rates (Manuel A.S. Graça & José M. González)</p><p>52.  Feeding Preferences (Cristina Canhoto, Manuel A.S. Graça & Felix Bärlocher)</p><p>53.  Energy Budget of Shredders (Manuel A.S. Graça)</p><p>54.  The Role of Shredders in Litter Dynamics at Stream Scale (José M. González & Manuel A.S. Graça)</p><p> </p><p>Part 7. Litter Manipulations</p><p> </p><p>55.  Manipulation of Leaf Litter Stoichiometry (Julio Arce-Funck, Vincent Felten, Michael Danger)</p><p>56.  Isotopic Labelling of Leaf-litter Nitrogen (Bernd Zeller, Severine Bienaimé & Etienne Dambrine)</p><p>57.  Decomposition and Consumption Tablets (DECOTABSs) (Gea H. van Der Lee, Ellard R. Hunting, J. Arie Vonk & Michiel H.S. Kraak)</p><p>58.  Inoculation of Leaf Litter with Aquatic Hyphomycetes (Eric Chauvet)</p><p> </p><p>Part 8. Data Analyses</p> <p></p><p>59.  A Primer for Statistical Analysis (Felix Bärlocher)</p><p>60.  Determining Temperature-normalized Decomposition Rates (Mark O. Gessner & Frank Peeters)</p><p>61.  Biodiversity Analysis (Felix Bärlocher)</p><p>62.  A Bioinformatics Primer for the Analysis of Illumina MiSeq Data of Litter-associated Fungi and Bacteria (Sahadevan Seena, Sofia Duarte & Christian Wurzbacher)</p>63.  A Primer for Meta-Analysis (Verónica Ferreira & Felix Bärlocher)<p></p><br>