A model of mineral-element cycling for an invertebrate food web in a southeastern hardwood forest litter community. Gist, undefined & Crossley, D. A. 1975.
A model of mineral-element cycling for an invertebrate food web in a southeastern hardwood forest litter community. [pdf]Paper  abstract   bibtex   
A 10-compartment model of the movement of calcium and potassium through a selected cryptozoan food web was constructed. The fluxes of potassium and calcium between the compartments were estimated using radioactive tracers. Results indicated that the models based on the summer states of the systems overemphasized the contribution of mesofauna to litter decomposition. On the basis of the annual nutrient models, Cryptostigmata and Collembola were the most important saprovores and small Araneida and Mesostigmata were the most important predators. The biomass model based on calcium fluxes showed that saprovores accounted for 20 percent of the total annual input; this agrees with the literature.

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