Clonal diversity and genetic variation of the sedge <em>Carex nigra</em> in an alpine fen depend on soil nutrients

Christoph Reisch

Stefanie Meier

Christoph Schmid

Maik Bartelheimer

^{Institute of Plant Sciences, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany}

^{Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity, Faculty of Biology, University of Münster, Münster, Germany}

^{Corresponding author.}

Christoph Reisch: ed.ru@hcsier.hpotsirhc

Received 2019 Nov 28; Accepted 2020 Mar 11.

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Abstract

In this study we analysed the impact of water regime and soil nutrients on the clonal diversity and genetic variation of the sedge Carex nigra in a central alpine fen. For our analysis, we established 16 study plots randomly distributed over the fen. We determined the exact elevation of each plot as an indicator for the water regime and measured the content of phosphorous and potassium in the soil of each plot. Clonal diversity and genetic variation of C. nigra were assessed with nuclear microsatellites using leaf material collected in 20 subplots along a diagonal cross within each study plot. The influence of water regime and soil mineral nutrients on clonal diversity and genetic variation was estimated by Bayesian multiple regression. Our study revealed a clear impact of soil nutrient conditions on clonal diversity and genetic variation of C. nigra, which increased with the concentration of phosphorous and decreased with the concentration of potassium. Key background to these findings seems to be the relative offspring success from generative as compared to clonal propagation. Phosphorous acquisition is essential during seedling establishment. Clonal diversity and genetic variation increase, therefore, at sites with higher phosphorous contents due to more successful recruitment. High levels of clonal diversity and genetic variation at sites of low potassium availability may in contrast be mainly caused by increased plant susceptibility to abiotic stress under conditions of potassium deficiency, which brings about more gaps in C. nigra stands and favors the ingrowth from other clones or recruitment from seeds.

Keywords: Microsatellites, Carex nigra, Clonality, High alpine fen, Soil nutrients

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank Teresa Wallner for collecting plant material and preliminary work in the lab. Special thanks go to Petra Schitko for assistance in the genetic lab and to Sabine Fischer for the design of the map showing the sampling plots. Furthermore, we would like to thank Peter Poschlod for helpful discussions about the ecology of alpine fens and his generous support.

Funding Statement

The authors received no funding for this work.

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