Nitrogen fixation in the sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island

Summary

The N₂-fixing biota of Macquarie Island are dominated by cyanobacteria growing epiphytically or symbolically with plants or lichens. Highest rates of C₂H₂-reducing activity were found in the leafy lichen Peltigera sp. colonizing herbfields and short grasslands and in the coastal angiosperm Colobanthus muscoides. Significant rates of C₂H₂ reduction were also found to be associated with the liverwort Jamesoniella colorata, commonly occurring in coastal and plateau mires, in a mossbed of Dicranella cardotii colonizing a land-slip face on the grassland slopes at 100 m altitude and within polsters of the mosses Ditrichum strictum and Andreaea sp. found in exposed localities on the plateau at 200–300 m altitude. It was concluded that the common feature of plants supporting active N₂ fixation in dry habitats was the dense packing of stems and leaves, enabling water translocation to the cyanobacterial zone by wick action. Epiphytic cyanobacterial C₂H₂ reduction in wet habitats was widespread and not restricted to any particular plant species. Notable N₂-fixing lichens of the plateau were Pseudocyphellaria delisea and Stereocaulon sp., although both were also occasionally found in coastal herbfields. No significant N₂-fixing activity was associated with any of the dominant grasses tested. Heterotrophic N₂ fixation was also found to be insignificant in the various habitats tested, however N₂-fixing Bacillus (B. macerans or B. polymyxa) were universally present in coastal, grassland slope, or plateau samples, including moss polster samples. A N₂fixing Clostridium sp. was isolated in only one instance, from soil in the vicinity of a seal wallow on the coast.