Journal
ECOSCIENCE
Volume 15, Issue 3, Pages 315-319Publisher
TAYLOR & FRANCIS INC
DOI: 10.2980/15-3-3141
Keywords
amino acid N; ammonium; bryophyte ecophysiology; nitrate
Categories
Funding
- Umea Centre for Environmental Research (CMF)
- Swedish Research Council for Environment
- Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning (FORMAS)
- Oscar and Lilli Lamm Foundation
- Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (MISTRA)
Ask authors/readers for more resources
In most boreal regions snow composes a large portion of the annual precipitation. Although many boreal forest floor bryophytes depend largely on precipitation for their nitrogen (N) supply, bryophyte uptake of snow N little explored. We studied chemical forms of plant-accessible N in snowmelt, as well as the temporal dynamics of their release. In conjuction we performed a N uptake experiment using the common boreal bryophyte Hylocomium splendens. the results demonstrated that the snowmelt N pool was dominated by NO3 (86%), followed by NH4+ (11%) and amino acid N (3%), in total providing ca 0.3 kg N.ha(-1) to the forest floor vegetation. Hylocomium splendens was able to access both inorganic and organic N-15 labelled N forms (NO3-, NH4+, and glycine) applied in situ to the snow covering the moss prior to snowmelt. Across all the N forms H. splendens took up ca 24% of the snow-deposited N. Nitrate uptake exceeded that of glycine, while NH4+ uptake was intermediate, reflecting the ambient distribution of the snowmelt N pool between plant-accessible N forms.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available