As composting becomes an accepted form of waste management
in the United States, a better understanding of microbial community dynamics is needed in order to improve and evaluate material processing and quality.
Many early studies dealt with the isolation and description of various compost microorganisms.
Much of this work was based on the assumption that an organism could be found and utilized to speed up decomposition. This hunt for a magic inoculum now appears futile, as it is unlikely that any particular organism could be the chief agent of decomposition throughout the variable conditions that occur over the composting process.