More than 1,000 volunteers buried cotton underwear across Switzerland to help scientists measure how active different soils are. The faster the fabric disappeared, the more biological activity was taking place underground. Gardens showed the fastest decomposition, while lawns had the least, revealing how strongly land management can shape soil life.
Disposable organic material (they specified cotton) and when dug up they could see how fast it decayed.
This is important in cold environments to measure how “alive” should is with micro organisms.
Something like a peat bog has zero oxygen, so doesn’t support microorganisms, hence little to no biological decay.
A lot of anaerobes exist especially in soil, peat bog would support those microorganisms.