Authors: Andreas Berg Åsa Danielsson Bo H Svensson
Publish Date: 2012/05/22
Volume: 362, Issue: 1-2, Pages: 271-278
Abstract
Despite the general assumption that nitrogen fixed by associated cyanobacteria will be readily utilised for growth by the Sphagnum no empirical evidence is available in the literature Therefore the effects of nitrogen transfer from cyanobacteria associated with S riparium were investigatedWe show that nitrogen fixation by cyanobacteria associated with Sphagnum mosses influences moss growth by transfer of fixed nitrogen to the moss More than 35 of the nitrogen fixed by cyanobacteria was transferred to the newly formed moss biomass and resulted in an increase in the growth of Sphagnum biomass compared to the controls The variation in the increase of nitrogen content explained 76 of the biomass incrementWe thank J Johansson for help with analysis of carbon and nitrogen content as well as phosphorus analysis We also thank Abisko Scientific Research Station for accommodation and assistance Invaluable language editing was performed by Sees Editing Ltd This work was financed by the Swedish National Research Council
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