Colloidal carbohydrates were positively related to organic matter in sediments from both streams [ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 8 OMITTED]; however, colloidal carbohydrates per gram organic matter were 3.8 times higher in the reference stream relative to the litter excluded stream (t test, P = 0.0001; Table 3).
First, we found large quantities of colloidal carbohydrates, a portion of bacterial exopolymers, which had five times more mass than bacterial cells in sediments.
Because colloidal carbohydrates represent only a fraction of the extracellular material secreted by bacteria and algae (Decho 1990, Underwood et al.
