The earlier Pantle & Buck method (1955) uses the same saprobic values s of each species, but not the weighting factor g. The Pantle-Buck saprobity index S, ranging from 0 to 4, is thus calculated:
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where the abundance A is expressed as one of nine subjective categories, ranging from "very rare" to "mass development". It does not require the organisms to be counted – which can save a lot of time – but raises the issues of intra- and inter-rater reliability.