ABSTRACT
Understanding the biogeochemical cycles in wetland ecosystems requires some fundamental knowledge of the basic terminology and concepts used in chemistry and biology. In addition, the reader needs to be familiar with basic soil science terms. The reader should refer to any basic chemistry or biology book to review some of the concepts used throughout this book. This chapter brie y reviews some basic concepts and terminology used in the book. The information was obtained from textbooks by Madigan and Martinko (2006), Segal (1976), and Brady and Weil (2003). A recent book by Coyne and Thompson (2006) on basic concepts for soil scientists is also available.
