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| “He doesn’t need any money; all he needs is his rucksack with those little plastic bags of dried food and a good pair of shoes and off he goes and enjoys the privileges of a millionaire in surroundings like this.” - Jack Kerouac |
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| The biome at Rocky Mountain National
Park is essentially high desert. Yearly precipitation is low so the
land supports only opportunistic trees and plants that can survive
without much water. In the dry climate this stump will rot at a slower
rate than it would in a more moist environment. But rot it will, and that's a good thing because soil is kept viable for new plant life by degrading organic matter. Without decomposing plants the soil would eventually not have enough essential chemicals to support new plant life. The top levels of soil are nutrient rich, but as you go deeper the quality is progressively less plant friendly, eventually transitioning to rock. A a detritus-based ecosystem is where decomposing plant life supplies necessary nutrients for the living plants. |
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