Nutrient homeostasis and mechanisms related to nutrient retention by wetland macrophytes in a subtropical wetland [article]

Paul Julian, Stefan Gerber, Jill King, Alan L Wright
2017 bioRxiv   pre-print
Central to ecological stoichiometry, nutrient homeostasis relates ambient stoichiometric conditions to a species stoichiometric composition. In wetland ecosystems, vegetation is a large, highly variable and dynamic sink of nutrients. This study investigated wetland plant stoichiometric homeostasis of dominant emergent and submerged aquatic vegetation (EAV and SAV, respectively) within two treatment cells of the Everglades Stormwater Treatment Areas (STAs). The hypotheses of this study assumed
more » ... tland vegetation will be non-homeostatic relative to ambient available nutrients and that due to changes in nutrient availability, phosphorus (P) resorption by EAV will vary along the water flow path through the wetland. This study confirmed the hypothesis that wetland vegetation is non-homeostatic along different vegetation communities with homeostasis coefficients of 0.67 ± 0.04 and 0.78 ± 0.03 for EAV and SAV respectively. Furthermore, the study rejected the concept of variable nutrient resorption with EAV resorption remaining relatively constant along the treatment cell relative to changes in nutrient availability as indicated by high EAV TP resorption efficiencies of 74.2 ± 2.3 %. These combined results suggest that vegetation within STAs provides a strong nutrient sink with relatively constant uptake pressure suggesting that vegetation, along with other factors, influence ambient nutrient conditions within a given treatment cell.
doi:10.1101/221465 fatcat:ka4gdjn425hjvhk2tqxw7jwtgi