Periwinkles and
coffeebean snails are the only
gastropods presently known to serve as sinks for the fungal mass in
the smooth-cordgrass shoot-decay system. But there are other
saltmarsh gastropods that may well be important grazers of decayed
cordgrass-shoot material. These are saltmarsh hydrobiids,
collected from the surface sediments of the marsh. The black line
at the top is 5 mm long, so you can see that these are tiny snails.
They may be among the micro-animals, in conjunction with
sediment bacteria and protozoa, that
make use of particles that fall away from the shoot-decay system
(and the fecal pellets that shoot-shredders drop). Particles of
decayed shoot would contain some living and some dead fungal mass,
along with lignocellulolytic fungal enzymes that could be captured.
See Newell, 1996, J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 200:187-206, and
Newell & Porter, 2000, pp. 159-185,in Weinstein & Kreeger, Concepts
and Controversies in Tidal Marsh Ecology, Kluwer.