Abstract
Arctic streams are highly sensitive to climate warming due to changes in water temperature and nutrient availability. Mosses are the dominant benthic primary producers in low-order streams in Greenland, and climate induced ecosystem alterations are expected to cause significant changes to their growth and productivity rates. However, the combined effects of climate change to stream mosses are relatively unknown. In this study, we conducted a full factorial experiment with three levels of nutrients and temperatures, and we measured primary productivity by applying the 14C-CO2 tracer method, relative growth rate (RGR), shoot elongation (SE) and lateral growth (length of branches, LB; Shoot density, SD). We aimed to investigate the single and interactive effect of temperature and nutrient enrichment on growth (biomass and elongation), primary productivity and shoot morphology of the Arctic aquatic moss Hygrohypnella ochracea. We found that low temperature determines H. ochracea growth however, the effect of nutrient enrichment became increasingly significant with increasing temperature. We also found important morphological changes in moss lateral growth which is expected to cause fundamental changes in moss community structure. Our results demonstrated that, in the low-order Arctic streams, climate change will cause shifts in benthic primary productivity, growth and morphology, and these changes are expected to cause cascading effects on the stream ecosystem structure, biodiversity and function.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Valerie Putmans, Specialist at PerkinElmer Company for her scientific and Inge Buss la Cour from Aarhus University for their support on radioactive 14C method and application. Special thanks to Lone J. Ottosen, Malin Camilla Håkansson, Ole Zahrtmann, Birgitte Kretzschmar Tagesen, for their support in the experimental set up and laboratory analysis. We also thank the Arctic Research station, University of Copenhagen for supporting our fieldwork. The authors would like to thank the reviewers (Dr Katrine Raundrup and the anonymous reviewer) for their valuable and helpful comments on our manuscript.
Funding
Paraskevi Manolaki received funding from the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS)-COFUND fellowship programme that is supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for Research, Technological development and Demonstration (Grant Agreement No 609033) and the Aarhus University Research Foundation, Denmark. Ada Pastor received funding from Canada-Denmark Arctic Research Station Early Career Scientist Exchange Program, from Polar knowledge Canada (POLAR) and the Danish Agency for Science and Higher Education, and Ramón Areces Foundation postgraduate studies program. Tenna Riis received funding from Carlsberg Foundation (CF19-0131). We are grateful to all the grantors.
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PM, AP, and TR conceived and designed research. PM and AP conducted field work. PM conducted the experiment. PM, KK, and KG analyzed the data. PM wrote the manuscript. TR, AP, and KK edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the manuscript. Tenna Riis received funding from Aarhus University Research Foundation and Carlsberg Foundation.
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Manolaki, P., Pastor, A., Karttunen, K. et al. Effects of temperature and nutrient enrichment on the Arctic moss Hygrohypnella ochracea growth and productivity. Polar Biol 45, 1415–1425 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-022-03077-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00300-022-03077-6