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Nitrogen uptake and allocation estimates for Spartina alterniflora and Distichlis spicata
- Source :
- Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology. 507:53-60
- Publication Year :
- 2018
- Publisher :
- Elsevier BV, 2018.
-
Abstract
- Salt marshes have the potential to intercept nitrogen that could otherwise impact coastal water quality. Salt marsh plants play a central role in nutrient interception by retaining N in above- and belowground tissues. We examine N uptake and allocation in two dominant salt marsh plants, short-form Spartina alterniflora and Distichlis spicata. Nitrogen uptake was measured using 15N tracer experiments conducted over a four-week period, supplemented with stem-level growth rates, primary production, and microbial denitrification assays. By varying experiment duration, we identify the importance of a rarely-measured aspect of experimental design in 15N tracer studies. Experiment duration had a greater impact on quantitative N uptake estimates than primary production or stem-level relative growth rates. Rapid initial scavenging of added 15N caused apparent nitrogen uptake rates to decline by a factor of two as experiment duration increased from one week to one month, although each experiment shared the qualitative conclusion that Distichlis roots scavenged N approximately twice as rapidly as Spartina. We estimate total N uptake into above- and belowground tissues as 154 and 277 mg N·m-2·d-1 for Spartina and Distichlis, respectively. Driving this pattern were higher N content in Distichlis leaves and belowground tissue and strong differences in primary production; Spartina and Distichlis produced 8.8 and 14.7 g biomass·m-2·d-1. Denitrification potentials were similar in sediment associated with both species, but the strong species-specific difference in N uptake suggests that Distichlis-dominated marshes are likely to intercept more N from coastal waters than are short-form Spartina marshes. The data and source code for this manuscript are available as an R package from https://github.com/troyhill/NitrogenUptake2016.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
geography
Spartina
Biomass (ecology)
Denitrification
geography.geographical_feature_category
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences
biology
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
Aquatic Science
biology.organism_classification
Spartina alterniflora
01 natural sciences
Distichlis
Nutrient
Agronomy
Salt marsh
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
Distichlis spicata
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00220981
- Volume :
- 507
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Journal of Experimental Marine Biology and Ecology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi...........a8932e3936ef0cbc1f401a3a0e7c1f84