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Cyanolichens: a link between the phosphorus and nitrogen cycles in a Hawaiian montane forest

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 December 2011

Jon W. Benner  and
Peter M. Vitousek
Jon W. Benner*
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Peter M. Vitousek
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
*
1Corresponding author. Email: jbenner@alumni.princeton.edu
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Abstract:

Low phosphorus (P) supply frequently has been shown to limit the abundance and activity of nitrogen (N)-fixing organisms, potentially constraining N inputs to ecosystems. Previous research in a montane Hawaiian forest has shown that ground-level P-fertilization led to significant increases in the population size of epiphytic N-fixing lichens (cyanolichens), as well as a shift in community composition from crustose to leafy species. In this study, we ask whether these changes in the cyanolichen community have resulted in increased N inputs to the forest, and also whether the very high levels of P in the canopy of P-fertilized forest stimulate individual lichen fixation rates over those of lichens from a nearby unfertilized reference forest. We used acetylene reduction (AR) assays to measure the fixation rates of 14 cyanolichen species from P-fertilized forest, and calibrated these rates by measuring 15N2 fixation incorporation in four species. We found that the ratio of acetylene reduced to N fixed ranged from 2.4 ± 0.4 in Pseudocyphellaria crocata to 9.3 ± 2.4 in Leptogium denticulatum. Nitrogen fixation rates in the P-fertilized forest ranged from 0.64 ± 0.05 nmol N cm−2 h−1 in Nephroma helveticum to 3.97 ± 1.48 nmol N cm−2 h−1 in Parmeliella nigrocincta. Fixation rates did not vary greatly among species from P-fertilized forest. We compared these P-fertilized rates to those of 10 species from the reference forest, and found that mass-based fixation rates of P-fertilized lichens were not greater than those of lichens from the unfertilized forest. Using the measured AR rates, we estimate that the P additions increase cyanolichen N inputs to the forest 30-fold, from ~0.3 kg N ha−1 y−1 to ~9 kg N ha−1 y−1. These results suggest that P additions to this ecosystem increase N inputs primarily by increasing the abundance of cyanolichens, and that shifts in cyanolichen community composition and changes in individual fixation rate were of lesser importance in determining ecosystem N inputs.

Keywords

cyanolichenHawaiinitrogen fixationphosphorustropical montane forest
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Tropical Ecology , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 73 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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References

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