HR: 1340h
AN: B23A-0925    [Abstracts]
TI: Plant Foliar Response to Soil Nutrient Availability Across Contrasting Geologic Settings
AU: * Castle, S C
EM: sarah.castle@colorado.edu
AF: University of Colorado at Boulder, 2200 Colorado Ave. Campus Box 399, Boulder, CO 80309,
AU: Neff, J C
EM: jason.c.neff@colorado.edu
AF: University of Colorado at Boulder, 2200 Colorado Ave. Campus Box 399, Boulder, CO 80309,
AB: Rock derived mineral nutrients such as P, Ca, Mg, Mn, and K play a significant, but poorly understood role in the structure and function of temperate forest ecosystems. Though these nutrients are not necessarily limiting to plant growth, they are essential to plant physiological functioning. In this study, we test the hypothesis that foliar nutrients are a proxy for soil nutrient availability across sites of different underlying geologies. Specifically, we focus on the plant nutrient-use strategies of rock derived nutrients (P and K) and how they relate to soil nutrient status. In order to assess the responses of plant species to nutrient availability, we monitored above ground net primary productivity (current annual increment + litterfall), plant chemistry, and soil nutrients for a period of 24 months. This research was completed in the San Juan Mountain region of southern Colorado, where there is a high local diversity of bedrock geochemistry. Within this region, two small sub-alpine basins were chosen; a sedimentary basin composed of Mesozoic cyclic limestone, sandstone & shale and a volcanic basin composed of Tertiary rhyolite. Across these basins, geology played a significant role in explaining the variability of rock derived nutrient availability. Initial results suggest that differences in bedrock geochemistry have little influence on the aboveground net primary production (ANPP) of plants or on the chemistry of foliar materials. This inflexibility of foliar chemistry to variations in nutrient availability suggests that genetic and physiologic controls play a strong role in determining the chemical content of plant materials. An alternative hypothesis is that deposition of eolian mineral dust into subalpine systems could play a role in offsetting the reliance of vegetation on deeper bedrock derived nutrient sources. An investigation is currently underway to assess the contribution of eolian dust derived nutrients to plant nutrition using Sr as a geochemical tracer.
DE: 0470 Nutrients and nutrient cycling (4845, 4850)
DE: 0476 Plant ecology (1851)
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting