The effects of nitrogen addition from snow goose feces and how the uptake of that nitrogen by mosses affects nitrogen uptake in grasses and sedges were measured in two types of arctic marshes. Mosses form dense mats on the marsh surface preventing leaching of nitrogen from feces into the sedge root zone. Therefore, nitrogen fertilizer labeled with the stable isotope ¹âµN was either applied to the moss surface or in the soil below the moss mat. In addition, control plots were established by using water instead of nitrogen additions. This was done once, in June 1997, at a freshwater marsh site on Bylot Island (73° 08' N, 80° 00' W) in Hudson Bay and once, in August 1997, at a saltwater marsh site along La Pérouse Bay (58° 04' N, 94° 03' W). Before the study began, an aluminum cylinder was inserted 15 cm into the soil with five cm remaining above the soil surface to prevent nitrogen not associated with the experiment from leaching into the experimental plots. One or two days and then two to four weeks following fertilization, mosses, sedges, and grasses within the cylinder were harvested and analyzed for ¹âµN and %N.
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