Symbiosis

, Volume 56, Issue 2, pp 55–66 | Cite as

Comparative ecophysiology of three Placopsis species, pioneer lichens in recently exposed Chilean glacial forelands

  • J. Raggio
  • T. G. A. Green
  • P. D. Crittenden
  • A. Pintado
  • M. Vivas
  • S. Pérez-Ortega
  • A. De los Ríos
  • L. G. Sancho
Article
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Abstract

Lichen species belonging to the genus Placopsis are early colonisers on snow free moraines of exposed land surfaces in the subantarctic region of Tierra de Fuego, South Chile. The physiological performance of three co-occurring species, P. pycnotheca, (terricolous), and P. perrugosa, and P. stenophylla (both saxicolous) was studied. All, possess green algal photobionts but have cyanobacteria in cephalodia. It was found that there was (i) a strong positive correlation between the acetylene reduction rate (AR) and the maximum photosynthetic rate (Amax), between the N content and the AR rate, and between the N and P contents, and (ii) the relationship between the CO2-exchange rates and the responses obtained in the laboratory reflected the ecology of these three lichens in the field. The results provide new information about the dynamics of some of the fastest growing crustose lichens. We hypothesize that the performance of these three species may have developed as a response to growing in an unstable environment that resulted from frequent glacial fluctuations.

Keywords

Nitrogen fixation Photosynthesis Phosphorus Growth Cephalodia 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

The authors thank M. José Malo for technical assistance. This work was supported by projects CGL2006-12179-C02-01 and CTM2009-12838-C04-01/03 from Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (Spain). JR and MV had grants from the first project and SPO received financial support from JAE-doc program. TGAG was also supported by a Ramón y Cajal Fellowship for part of the research.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Supplementary material

13199_2012_159_MOESM1_ESM.pdf (78 kb)
Supplementary Material 1 (PDF 78.1 kb)

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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Authors and Affiliations

  • J. Raggio
    • 1
  • T. G. A. Green
    • 1
    • 2
  • P. D. Crittenden
    • 3
  • A. Pintado
    • 1
  • M. Vivas
    • 1
  • S. Pérez-Ortega
    • 4
  • A. De los Ríos
    • 4
  • L. G. Sancho
    • 1
  1. 1.Departamento de Biología Vegetal II, Facultad de FarmaciaUniversidad Complutense de MadridMadridSpain
  2. 2.Biological SciencesWaikato UniversityHamiltonNew Zealand
  3. 3.School of BiologyUniversity of NottinghamNottinghamUK
  4. 4.Instituto de Recursos NaturalesCentro de Ciencias MedioambientalesMadridSpain

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