Functional diversity and trait composition of vascular plant and Sphagnum moss communities during peatland succession across land uplift regions

Abstract

Most of the carbon accumulated into peatlands is derived from Sphagnum mosses. During peatland development, the relative share of vascular plants and Sphagnum mosses in the plant community changes, which impacts ecosystem functions. Little is known on the successional development of functional plant traits or functional diversity in peatlands, although this could be a key for understanding the mechanisms behind peatland resistance to climate change. Here we aim to assess how functionality of successive plant communities change along the autogenic peatland development and the associated environmental gradients, namely peat thickness and pH, and to determine whether trait trade‐offs during peatland succession are analogous between vascular plant and moss communities. We collected plant community and trait data on successional peatland gradients from post‐glacial rebound areas in coastal Finland, Sweden and Russia, altogether from 47 peatlands. This allowed us to analyse the changes in community‐weighted mean trait values and functional diversity (diversity of traits) during peatland development. Our results show comparative trait trade‐offs from acquisitive species to conservative species in both vascular plant and Sphagnum moss communities during peatland development. However, mosses had higher resistance to environmental change than vascular plant communities. This was seen in the larger proportion of intraspecific trait variation than species turnover in moss traits, while the proportions were opposite for vascular plants. Similarly, the functional diversity of Sphagnum communities increased during the peatland development, while the opposite occurred for vascular plants. Most of the measured traits showed a phylogenetic signal. More so, the species common to old successional stages, namely Ericacae and Sphagna from subgroup Acutifolia were detected as most similar to their phylogenetic neighbours. Synthesis. During peatland development, vegetation succession leads to the dominance of conservative plant species accustomed to high stress. At the same time, the autogenic succession and ecological engineering of Sphagna leads to higher functional diversity and intraspecific variability, which together indicate higher resistance towards environmental perturbations.

Predicting the structure and functions of peatland microbial communities from Sphagnum phylogeny, anatomical and morphological traits and metabolites

“…Among Sphagnum traits, we predicted that (d) Sphagnum metabolites have a stronger effect in shaping microbial properties than anatomical and morphological traits, since metabolites are released into Sphagnum surroundings and can directly influence microbial community composition and/or microbial traits. Finally, as Sphagnum traits do not exclusively vary with climatic and edaphic conditions (Sytiuk et al, 2020), but also according to phylogeny (Laine et al, 2021), we hypothesized that (e) Sphagnum phylogeny is an important determinants of microbial properties, in addition to climatic and edaphic conditions and Sphagnum traits.…”

Back to the Future: Restoring Northern Drained Forested Peatlands for Climate Change Mitigation

“…Peat soils characterized by high mineral nutrient, medium pH, low soil oxygen content and high soil water content promote plant communities dominated by specialized vascular plants such as wetland sedges (Carex spp.) and some forbs species (Robroek et al, 2015;Laine et al, 2021). In contrast, peat soils characterized by low mineral nutrient content, low pH, low soil oxygen content and high soil water content enhance plant communities dominated by peat mosses (Sphagnum spp.)…”

“…During this phase vegetation cover is fully recovered and plant community is characterized by typical peatlands genera such as Sphagnum, Eriophorum and Carex. Final composition will likely be a function of nutrient content and pH (Laine et al, 2021). There is evidence of effective restoration of ecological properties through rewetting (Menberu et al, 2016;Alderson et al, 2019;Ahmad et al, 2020;Purre et al, 2020), but this process might require up to 30 years and for some systems might not be possible due to changes associated with long term drainage (Holden et al, 2004;Kreyling et al, 2021).…”

Do Bryophyte Elemental Concentrations Explain Their Morphological Traits?

“…Recent publications focused on bryophyte functional traits have considerably increased our knowledge regarding the relationship between the environment and bryophyte functional traits [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. In particular, some of these studies identified water chemistry (e.g., pH, dissolved nutrients, and heavy metals) as an important determinant of moss traits and growth forms [ 2 , 25 , 28 ].…”

“…Recent publications focused on bryophyte functional traits have considerably increased our knowledge regarding the relationship between the environment and bryophyte functional traits [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. In particular, some of these studies identified water chemistry (e.g., pH, dissolved nutrients, and heavy metals) as an important determinant of moss traits and growth forms [ 2 , 25 , 28 ]. Other studies, focused on how several traits are related to each other, made very relevant contributions in order to emulate the leaf economic spectrum described for vascular plants [ 23 , 24 ].…”