Life Sciences Commons^™

The Tradeoff Between Polyuronic Acid Content And Photosynthesis Rates In Sphagnum, Michael J. Danise

Honors Theses

Sphagnum mosses often dominate peatland ecosystems. Because of the low availability of nutrients in these environments, Sphagnum mosses have developed a cation exchange system within their cell walls to take up nutrients using polyuronic acids (PUA). Increasing amounts of PUA may come at a physiological tradeoff and cause decreasing photosynthetic rates. The objectives of this study were 1) to assess variation in polyuronic acid content and structure by analyzing component monomers from three different Sphagnum species representative of different microhabitats, 2) to investigate how this variation affects the cation exchange capacity of the peat moss species, and 3) to evaluate …