Summary
We compared ammonium and nitrate nutrition in Eriophorum scheuchzeri and E. vaginatum, two Alaskan sedges that are native to high- and low-fertility sites, respectively. When grown in solution culture, the two species were similar in their kinetics of NH sup+inf4 NO sup-inf3 absorption: at nitrogen concentrations below 50 μM, net NH sup+inf4 and NO sup-inf3 were absorbed at similar rates, but at higher concentrations, net uptake of NO sup-inf3 was significantly faster than that of NH sup+inf4 . The two species also showed similar abilities to assimilate NO sup-inf3 . Growth of E. vaginatum under NO sup-inf3 nutrition was only slightly less than that under NH sup+inf4 . The observed similarities between these species from contrasting edaphic habitats indicate that factors other than tissue-specific rates of nitrogen acquisition and assimilation may underlie local adaptation to soil N fertility. Moreover, the capacity of these species to exploit NO sup-inf3 as a N source supports the view that NO sup-inf3 availability may be significant even in wet, acidic, arctic soils.
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Koch, G.W., Bloom, A.J. & Chapin, F.S. Ammonium and nitrate as nitrogen sources in two Eriophorum species. Oecologia 88, 570–573 (1991). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00317721
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00317721