Undergraduate Honors Thesis

 

Nitrogen concentrations in lichens as a proxy for Nitrogen deposition Public Deposited

https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/02870w32k
Abstract
  • This study addressed the potential for using lichens as a metric to estimate rates of nitrogen (N) deposition in the Colorado subalpine. I tested the hypothesis that lichen tissue N concentration could be used as a proxy for N deposition in the absence of deposition monitors. To test this hypothesis I conducted two experiments using four species of lichens that occur throughout the subalpine ecosystems of the southern Rocky Mountains. The first experiment measured the changes in lichen N concentration in response to 5 treatment levels of N additions in a greenhouse environment over three months. The second experiment measured lichen tissue N concentration in the vicinity of deposition monitors throughout the Colorado subalpine. For each experiment I used a linear regression to test whether the relationship between N deposition and lichen tissue concentration could be used as a predictive model for N deposition. There was a significant positive relationship between treatment and tissue concentration for Usnea lapponica in the greenhouse experiment. The other three species included in this study showed no correlation. N concentration in Xanthoparmelia coloradoensis showed a significant correlation with measured wet deposition in the field study. The other three species showed no relationship.
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Date Awarded
  • 2011-11-02
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Last Modified
  • 2019-12-02
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