Correlation dependence between content of chemical elements in sphagnum mossesand their ecological optima for soil fertility and soil moisture factors

Sphagnum mosses play the important role in vegetation as frequently they act as edificatorsand dominants of wetland communities. This circumstance allows using them asbioindicators and enables estimation of the characteristics of phytocoenoses bypassingdirect measurements of parameters of environment. For example, make it possible to assumethe contents of chemical elements in these plants without carrying out of expensiveand labour-consuming analyses. The purpose of the study is the estimation of correlationdependence between the content of chemical elements in different peatmosses and theirecological optima for soil fertility and soil moisture factors.Study objects are 26 moss species of genus Sphagnum L.: S. aongstroemii Hartm.,S. angustifolium (C. Jens. ex Russ.) C. Jens., S. balticum (Russow) C. Jens., S. capillifolium(Ehrh.) Hedw., S. centrale C. Jens., S. compactum Lam. & DC., S. contortumSchultz, S. fallax (H. Klinggr.) H. Klinggr., S. fimbriatum Wilson, S. fuscum (Schimp.)Klinggr., S. girgensohnii Russow, S. jensenii H. Lindb., S. lenense H. Lindb. ex Savicz,S. lindbergii Schimp., S. magellanicum Brid., S. majus (Russow) C. Jens., S. palustre L.,S. papillosum Lindb., S. riparium Angstr., S. rubellum Wils., S. russowii Warnst.,S. squarrosum Crome, S. subsecundum Ness., S. teres (Schimp.) Angstr., S. warnstorfiiRuss., S. wulfianum Girg, sampled in the territory of West Siberian plain in 2004-2009.Ecological optima of Sphagnum species for soil fertility and soil moisture factorswere obtained in our previous study. The estimation of habitats of peatmosses is carriedout on the basis of three indicator scales: L.G. Ramensky (1956), I.A. Tsatsenkin (1978)and D.N. Tsyganov (1983). Definition of element structure is dobe by neutron activationmethod in a research reactor of Tomsk Polytechnic University (Tomsk). Correlation dependencebetween the content of chemical elements in peatmosses and their ecologicaloptima of different peatmoss species for soil fertility and soil moisture factors is estimatedwith the help of Spearmans rank correlation coefficientCorrelation of ecological optima of Sphagnum mosses on three scales with concentrationof K, Rb, Zn (factor of soil fertility) and Mn (factor of soil moisture) is established.Conditions of habitats of Sphagnum mosses can be used as indicators on the contentsof these chemical elements.

Keywords

Authors

References