Organic-matter decomposition as a bioassessment tool of stream functioning: A comparison of eight decomposition-based indicators exposed to different environmental changes

Species of leaf litter are more important than urbanization effects for litter mass loss in semi-arid river

“…The activity of decomposers (microorganisms and invertebrates) is crucial not only in leaf litter breakdown, but also in indicating ecosystem quality (Ferreira et al 2021;Brosed et al 2022). The occurrence (Ferreira et al 2021), frequency (Rezende et al 2014a), and distribution (Correa-Araneda et al 2022) of decomposers organisms can provide essential information about the conservation status of the environment they inhabit (Chauvet et al 2016;Ferreira et al 2021;Brosed et al 2022).…”

“…The activity of decomposers (microorganisms and invertebrates) is crucial not only in leaf litter breakdown, but also in indicating ecosystem quality (Ferreira et al 2021;Brosed et al 2022). The occurrence (Ferreira et al 2021), frequency (Rezende et al 2014a), and distribution (Correa-Araneda et al 2022) of decomposers organisms can provide essential information about the conservation status of the environment they inhabit (Chauvet et al 2016;Ferreira et al 2021;Brosed et al 2022). Identifying the organisms that make up the decomposer fauna of each environment allows for an understanding of the organic matter dynamics within a particular ecosystem, which can facilitate its management and conservation (Tank et al 2010;Graça et al 2015).…”

“…Several studies have examined the impact of human activities on leaf litter breakdown and invertebrate communities (Chauvet et al 2016;Ferreira et al 2021;Brosed et al 2022). Litter breakdown rates typically show a variable pattern (Hill et al 2022), accelerating with moderate nutrient input in water (Tagliaferro et al 2022), remaining neutral (Smith and Chadwick 2014), or decreasing due to the harmful effect of pollutants on decomposer communities (Torres and Ramírez 2014; Classen-Rodríguez et al 2019; Wymore et al 2021).…”

Microbial colonization and decomposition of commercial tea and native alder leaf litter in temperate streams

“…Tea bags have been used in largescale studies aiming at assessing the drivers of litter decomposition in the soil, while controlling for intraspecific variation in litter quality (Djukic et al 2018;Petraglia et al 2019;Fanin et al 2020). Although tea bags were first proposed as a method to address litter decomposition in terrestrial systems (Keuskamp et al 2013), they have recently gain track in aquatic ecosystems, especially in wetlands (Lalimi et al 2018;Mueller et al 2018;Marley et al 2019;Trevathan-Tachett et al 2021), but also in lakes (Seelen et al 2019) and streams (Peralta-Maraver et al 2019;Ferreira et al 2021). Despite that the tea used in tea bags has undergone a series of modifications during processing for commercialization (e.g., grinding, oxidation), the decomposition of green and rooibos teas in aquatic ecosystems seems to respond to environmental conditions predictably, suggesting that they can be used as a surrogate for the decomposition of natural leaf litter (Peralta-Maraver et al 2019;Seelen et al 2019;Trevathan-Tackett et al 2021;Ferreira et al 2021).…”

“…Although tea bags were first proposed as a method to address litter decomposition in terrestrial systems (Keuskamp et al 2013), they have recently gain track in aquatic ecosystems, especially in wetlands (Lalimi et al 2018;Mueller et al 2018;Marley et al 2019;Trevathan-Tachett et al 2021), but also in lakes (Seelen et al 2019) and streams (Peralta-Maraver et al 2019;Ferreira et al 2021). Despite that the tea used in tea bags has undergone a series of modifications during processing for commercialization (e.g., grinding, oxidation), the decomposition of green and rooibos teas in aquatic ecosystems seems to respond to environmental conditions predictably, suggesting that they can be used as a surrogate for the decomposition of natural leaf litter (Peralta-Maraver et al 2019;Seelen et al 2019;Trevathan-Tackett et al 2021;Ferreira et al 2021). Green and rooibos teas also seem to be considerably colonized by prokaryota, protozoa and eumetazoa invertebrates in wetlands and streams (Peralta-Maraver et al 2019;Trevathan-Tackett et al 2021), and to support substantial microbial activity under laboratory conditions simulating wetland environment (Trevathan-Tackett et al 2020).…”