Plant community dynamics, nutrient cycling, and alternative stable equilibria in peatlands

The American Naturalist
John PastorJiquan Chen

Abstract

Although observational data and experiments suggest that carbon flux and storage in peatlands are controlled by hydrology and/or nutrient availability, we lack a rigorous theory to account for the roles that different plant species or life-forms, particularly mosses, play in carbon and nutrient flux and storage and how they interact with different hydrologic sources of nutrients. We construct and analyze a model of peatlands that sheds some light on this problem. The model is a set of six coupled differential equations that define the flow of nutrients from moss and vascular plants to their litters, then to peat, and finally to an inorganic nutrient resource pool. We first analyze a simple version of this model (model 1) in which all nutrient input is from precipitation and enters the moss compartment directly, mimicking the dynamics of ombrotrophic bogs. There is a transcritical bifurcation that results in a switch of stability between two equilibrium bog communities: a moss monoculture and a community where mosses and vascular plants coexist. The bifurcation depends on the magnitudes of the input/output budget of the peatland and the life-history traits of the plants. We generalize model 1 to model 2 by dividing nutrient inpu...Continue Reading

References

May 1, 1991·Ecological Applications : a Publication of the Ecological Society of America·Eville Gorham

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Citations

May 4, 2004·The American Naturalist·M RietkerkM F P Bierkens
Jun 7, 2005·The American Naturalist·Benjamin R ClarkClaire de Mazancourt
Aug 29, 2012·The New Phytologist·M R TuretskyE-S Tuittila
Nov 20, 2008·Journal of Integrative Plant Biology·Jiquan ChenJake F Weltzin
Nov 1, 2008·Ecology·Scott D BridghamKaren Updegraff
Nov 1, 2002·The New Phytologist·Scott D Bridgham

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