Photodegradation of grass litter in semi-arid grasslands : a global perspective

Köchy, Martin

Photodegradation of grass litter in semi-arid grasslands : a global perspective

2007

Köchy, Martin

In a recent contribution in Nature (vol. 442, pp. 555-558) Austin & Vivanco showed that sunlight is the dominant factor for decomposition of grass litter in a semi-arid grassland in Argentine. The quantification of this effect was portrayed as a novel finding. I put this result in the context of three other publications from as early as 1980 that quantified photodegradation. My synopsis shows that photodegradation is an important process in semi-arid grasslands in South America, North America and eastern Europe.

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