Growth and Plant Nutrient Concentration in Hylocomium Proliferum (L.) Lindb. in Relation to Tree Canopy

Abstract

This paper describes, part of an investigation in which an attempt has been made to elucidate the relationships between the growth of plants in a community and environmental factors. Here we shall deal only with the total annual growth of a plant community, and with the average concentrations of nutrients in the members of the community, within certain areas. Variations in size, in rate of growth and in nutritional status among individual plants have also been investigated, and in a further publication some relationships will be discussed between environmental factors and these variations, which are closely connected with the structure of the plant community. On account of their relatively simple structure the moss carpets often found in spruce forests were chosen for study. It was already known that these moss carpets present interesting ecological problems since STALFELT (1937 a) had observed that they obtain very little of their water requirements from the substratum. ROMELL (1939) has suggested that they obtain supplies of plant nutrients from the rain water Teachings of forest litter (needles and blueberry leaves). The material was collected from a spruce forest situated in eastern Uppland near the Baltic coast (590 52' lat. N.). The forest also contained a few pine and birch trees. Samples were taken towards the end of May and again towards the end of July from the closed community of the carpet of mosses. All samples were taken from patches where Hylocomium proliferum was dominant, and were selected from within an area 15 X 15 m, lying partly beneath the spruce crowns but also comprising a. small clearing among the trees. The field layer was mostly sparse and consisted of scattered Vaccinium inyrtillus and V. vitis idaea. The light intensities, as shown in Figs. 1 & 2,