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Regional Wetland Plant Responses to Sulfur and Other Porewater Chemistry in Calcareous Rich Fens

  • Wetland Biogeochemistry
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Abstract

Many wetland environmental gradients structure plant community composition, yet controls of plant community composition within rich fens, botanically diverse groundwater-fed wetlands, are still incompletely understood. Porewater chemistry and plant community composition were recorded for eight calcareous rich fens encompassing both calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate geological inputs in the Central New York State region. As expected, porewater sulfate and sulfide concentrations were, on average, higher for wetlands overlying calcium sulfate than for wetlands overlying calcium carbonate. However, within-wetland heterogeneity in porewater chemistry was high. Moss species density, moss cover, and total plant cover decreased with increased sulfide. Moss, dicot, and total cover also had a negative relationship with calcium. There were a number of species-level responses to calcium, sulfide, phosphorus, and ferrous iron. Plant height had a positive relationship with nitrogen. The strength and relative importance of some plant responses to sulfide and calcium in the current regional study differed from a previous sub-hectare scale study. The observed decrease in some metrics of site-level plant diversity with increased sulfide variability across fens highlighted the need to characterize species-environment relationships across spatial scales.

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Data Availability

The data generated during the current study are available in the Dryad data repository at (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.547d7wm6q).

Code Availability

Standard R scripts available on request.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to Emily Nash and Stephen Zelno for assistance with field and laboratory work. Thanks to Joe Yavitt and Steven Wolf for helpful advice and additional assistance in placing the research in a broad context. F. Robert Wesley identified some of the plant specimens.

Funding

Funding was provided by the National Science Foundation IGERT program in Biogeochemistry and Environmental Biocomplexity at Cornell University, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Millbrook Garden Club, the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Ecosystems Program, and the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science to Achieve Results (STAR) Graduate Fellowship Program. EPA has not officially endorsed this publication and the views expressed herein may not reflect the views of the EPA.

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Author notes

  1. Samuel M. Simkin

    Present address: Battelle, National Ecological Observatory Network, Boulder, CO, 80301, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Natural Resources, Cornell University, Fernow Hall, Ithaca, NY, 14853, USA

    Samuel M. Simkin & Barbara L. Bedford

  2. Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Box AB, 12545, Millbrook, NY, USA

    Samuel M. Simkin & Kathleen C. Weathers

Authors
  1. Samuel M. Simkin
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  2. Barbara L. Bedford
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  3. Kathleen C. Weathers
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study design. SMS obtained funding, acquired and analyzed the data, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. BLB and KCW provided extensive comments and edits with regard to all versions of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Samuel M. Simkin.

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Ethics Approval

Sampling was non-destructive and did not involve removal of soil, plant or animal samples. Permission was obtained from a variety of sources (e.g., NYS Department of Environmental Conservation, Cornell University, and private landowners).

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Not applicable (no human subjects).

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Simkin, S.M., Bedford, B.L. & Weathers, K.C. Regional Wetland Plant Responses to Sulfur and Other Porewater Chemistry in Calcareous Rich Fens. Wetlands 41, 42 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-021-01438-1

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