Oral Paper

         Ecology

Decline in Mycorrhizal Activity Decreases Foliar Micronutrients After Arctic Wildfire Recovery

Presenting Author
Natalie Kashi
Description
Wildfires in the Arctic are historically uncommon but in recent decades have increased in frequency and intensity. Phases of post-fire succession depend on wildfire severity and the initial effect is species loss such as Sphagnum and the combustion of plant and soil organic matter. After 5-10 years of recovery, vegetation growth increases, especially shrubs, likely as a response to higher nitrogen and phosphorus availability from the wildfire combustion of organic matter and associated permafrost thaw. However, the long-term post-fire succession dynamics in the tundra are not fully understood as this increased growth response can taper 9-12 years post-recovery. Additionally, wildfires reduce microbial biomass and abundance by over 90 %, with little recovery a decade post-wildfire. Here, we investigated how four dominant Arctic plants with different mycorrhizal relationships respond to nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and nitrogen and phosphorus (NP) fertilization in both unburned and burned tundra. We hypothesize that higher N and P availability post-wildfire may decrease mycorrhizal-mediated nutrients and subsequently reduce foliar micronutrient concentrations. Ectomycorrhizal and ericoid mycorrhizal species increased foliar d15N by 4.0 ± 1.9 ‰ in response to the wildfire, whereas the non-mycorrhizal species Eriophorum vaginatum and arbuscular mycorrhizal Rubus chamaemorus showed little change. These d15N patterns were even stronger after adding N or NP, indicating wildfires alleviate nutrient limitation and reliance on mycorrhizal symbiosis for ericoid and ectomycorrhizal plant species. Lower foliar d15N in N and NP treatments for non-mycorrhizal and arbuscular mycorrhizal plants likely reflect the N fertilizer signature. Wildfire increased foliar N and P concentrations across all species by 24% and 17%, respectively. In contrast, wildfire decreased concentrations of four of the five micronutrients (barium, sodium, sulfur, and zinc) but increased foliar potassium concentrations. The ectomycorrhizal species Betula nana had highest micronutrient concentrations including aluminum, barium, boron, calcium, manganese, and zinc. For non-mycorrhizal Eriophorum vaginatum, micronutrients were significantly lower than in the other plants, except for silicon.  There was a strong negative correlation between d15N and micronutrients (barium, r = -0.67; boron, r = -0.54; calcium, r =-0.44; manganese, r =-0.58, and zinc, r = -0.34) and a positive correlation for potassium (r = 0.49), suggesting that micronutrient concentrations decline with higher d15N (less mycorrhizal mediated nutrients). We compared the change in nutrient concentrations between each of the three unburned fertilization treatments to the control burned treatment to compare how wildfire and nutrient enrichment affects various nutrient foliar concentrations. There was a strong correlation (adj r2 = 0.47) for the NP treatment, with a positive change for N and P and a negative change for barium, calcium, copper, iron, zinc, magnesium, manganese, and silicon. These data indicate N and P enrichment on Arctic vegetation negatively affects a variety of other nutrient foliar concentrations. Despite 12 years post-wildfire recovery, our results suggest decreased plant-mycorrhizal symbioses may lead to micronutrient limitation, a mechanism responsible for slower vegetation growth rates during the later post-fire succession.