Phosphorus Translocation by Red Deer on a Subalpine Grassland in the Central European Alps |
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Authors: | Martin Schütz Anita C. Risch Gérald Achermann Conny Thiel-Egenter Deborah S. Page-Dumroese Martin F. Jurgensen Peter J. Edwards |
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Affiliation: | (1) Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, CH-8903 Birmensdorf, Switzerland;(2) Department of Biology, Biological Research Laboratories, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244, USA;(3) Institute of Systematic Botany, University of Zurich, CH-8008 Zurich, Switzerland;(4) Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Moscow, Idaho 83843, USA;(5) School of Forest Resources and Environmental Science, Michigan Technological University, Houghton, Michigan 49931, USA;(6) Geobotanical Institute, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, CH-8044 Zurich, Switzerland |
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Abstract: | We examined the role of red deer (Cervus elaphus L.) in translocating phosphorus (P) from their preferred grazing sites (short-grass vegetation on subalpine grasslands) to their wider home range in a subalpine grassland ecosystem in the Central European Alps. Phosphorus was used because it is the limiting nutrient in these grasslands. When we compared P removal of aboveground biomass due to grazing with P input due to the deposit of feces on a grid of 268 cells (20 m × 20 m) covering the entire grassland, we detected distinct spatial patterns: the proportion of heavily grazed short-grass vegetation increased with increasing soil-P pool, suggesting that red deer preferably grazed on grid cells with a higher soil-P pool. Biomass consumption related to increased proportion of short-grass vegetation, and therefore P removal, increased with increasing soil-P pool. However, within the two vegetation types (short-grass and tall-grass), consumption was independent from soil-P pool. In addition, P input rates from defecation increased with increasing soil-P pool, resulting in a constant mean net P loss of 0.083 kg ha−1 y−1 (0.03%–0.07% of soil-P pool) independent of both soil-P pool and vegetation type. Thus, there was no P translocation between grid cells with different soil-P pools or between short-grass and tall-grass vegetation. Based on these results, it is likely that the net rate of P loss is too small to explain the observed changes in vegetation composition from tall-herb/meadow communities to short-grass and from tall-grass to short-grass on the grassland since 1917. Instead, we suggest that the grazing patterns of red deer directly induced succession from tall-herb/meadow communities to short-grass vegetation. Yet, it is also possible that long-term net soil-P losses indirectly drive plant succession from short-grass to tall-grass vegetation, because nutrient depletion could reduce grazing pressure in short-grass vegetation and enable the characteristic tall-grass species Carex sempervirens Vill. to establish. |
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Keywords: | Cervus elaphus elimination pattern grazing pattern phosphorus removal/input succession Swiss National Park |
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