Here are some recently obtained values for fungal productivity in Sapelo Island saltmarshes.

For the six months including summer+autumn = 101 g organic mass per square meter marsh.

For the six months including winter+spring = 434 g organic mass per square meter marsh.

On a full-year basis, for the 11 square kilometers of the marshes of the Sapelo Island National Estuarine Research Reserve (SINERR) = 6,000 metric tons of fungal organic mass. If only 1% of this were converted into white shrimp (10-cm length), the SINERR shrimp yield would be 55 million per year^*.

On a full-year basis, for SINERR marshes, a very conservative estimate of ascospore output is 65,000 trillion spores (= approximately 40,000 gallon jugs packed full of ascospores!).

See Newell, S.Y. 2001 Multiyear patterns of fungal crop dynamics and fungal productivity within naturally decaying smooth- cordgrass shoots. Limnol. Oceanogr. 46:573-583.

Newell, S.Y. 2001. Fungal biomass and productivity in standing- decaying leaves of black needlerush. Mar. Freshw. Res. 52:249-255.

Newell, S.Y. 2001. Spore-expulsion rates and extents of blade occupation by ascomycetes of the smooth-cordgrass standing-decay system. Bot. Mar. 44:277-285.

^*Shrimp-mass data used courtesy R.T. Kneib (10-cm white shrimp = 1.1 g dry organic mass).