Soil food web

To give an impression of the richness and complexity of natural tree species specific soil wood webs, the following example.

A handful of forest floor soil contains, apart from the roots of plants or trees and dead organic matter, 1.000 billion bacteria, 500 billion flagellates, 100 billion amoeba's, a couple of billions of below surface a-sexually reproducing microfungi, the mycelia and ectomycorrhizae of one billion macrofungi, a few million of ciliata and about one million of soil algae.

On top of that, large numbers of worms, nematodes and insects are present, which apart from or together and/or in cooperation with the above mentioned organisms recycle organic materials in a given order or succession. Together with the mainly or exclusively above the forest floor living organisms, they are part of the tree species specific ecosystems, responsible for the energy balace within the system and for keeping the food chain or recycling circle of the ecosystem of the tree and the forest closed and intact.

The decomposition and recycling of the leaves of a Hazel takes about 6 month, of a Lime about 2 years, of a Beech about 3 years and of needles of indigenous coniferous trees about 4-5 years, heavily depending on the presence or absence of litter decomposing tree species specific saprotrophic macrofungi, such as Xylaria carpophila on capules of beech, Ciboria batschiana on blackened acorn halves, Marasmius androsaceus and Micromphale perforans on needles and coarse litter of spruce, Strobilurus tenacellus on buried fir cones and Auriscalpium vulgare on buried cones of pine.

And an even more impressive number comes from the total presence of hyphal or mycelial tissue above and underground, including the mushrooms, toadstools and bracket fungi, which corresponds with two metric tons of fungal and mycelial mass (chitine) per person on earth.

For a mycological and ecological systemic and contextual approach to endo- and ectomycorrhizal symbionts and the role they play in the dynamics of species specific ecosystems of trees, see : Mycorrhizae.

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Wow:thumbup1:

For a mycological and ecological systemic and contextual approach to endo- and ectomycorrhizal symbionts and the role they play in the dynamics of species specific ecosystems of trees, see : Mycorrhizae.

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Can i have a half wits version of this please.

To give an impression of the richness and complexity of natural tree species specific soil wood webs,....

And an even more impressive number comes from the total presence of hyphal or mycelial tissue above and underground, including the mushrooms, toadstools and bracket fungi, which corresponds with two metric tons of fungal and mycelial mass (chitine) per person on earth.

Its great having you around dude, really great, your doing a far better job than i ever could of inspiring others to think on these subjects:thumbup1:

Excellent, and developers wonder why they cant get anything to grow when thay have left all their topsoil in a massive heap for a year.

filled with bricks and rubble, believe me i've seen it, i've even been guilty of having to plant trees in these conditions:thumbdown:

To give an impression of the richness and complexity of natural tree species specific soil wood webs, the following example.

A handful of forest floor soil contains ... a couple of billions of below surface a-sexually reproducing microfungi, the mycelia and ectomycorrhizae of one billion macrofungi ...

And an even more impressive number comes from the total presence of hyphal or mycelial tissue above and underground, including the mushrooms, toadstools and bracket fungi, which corresponds with two metric tons of fungal and mycelial mass (chitine) per person on earth.

Adding some other information.

A gram of biomass taken from the first 6 centimetres of soil beneath the forest floor contains 40 to 100 metres of fungal hyphae.

A surface area of one square metre of forest soil contains 100 square metres of hyphae or mycelia.

When stretched out, the in a surface area of 2.5 square metres of forest soil incorporated hyphae add up to a total length of 40.000 kilometres, which is about the circumference of the earth.

The outcome of Dutch research on the economics of mycorrhizae and tree roots.