BIS 2B Lecture Notes - Lecture 25: Exponential Decay, Lignin, Detritivore

• School: UC-Davis
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BIS 2B
• Professor: Mark Schwartz; Sharon Strauss

Document Summary

Only fungi can digest lignin in wood, makes fungi especially important in forests. Lignin: form structural parts of wood, cell walls. Decompose material into elements to be reused by plants. Represents a constant fraction of biomass loss over time. "high quality" (high k) biomass has higher decomposition rate. Low cellulose and lignin > high cellulose and lignin. Continents continually shift, note where continents used to be. Building o2 in atmosphere through photosynthesis by anaerobic organisms. Using scientific evidence to reconstruct history of life. Concordance: when different streams of data tell the same story. The time it takes for half the remaining isotopes to decay. Dating particular layers, rich in specific elements can allow us to bracket the ages of fossil deposits. Mountains created by volcanoes caused by plates colliding. Driven by continental movement, orbital cycles - we wobble in our orbit closer or farther from the sun, and greenhouse gasses.