On the ecology of Nostoc commune (Cyanoprokaryota) in Southern Siberia and Mongolia

Abstract

The author’s and literature data on the distribution of the Nostoc Nostoc commune Vaucher ex Bornet et Flahault in the terrestrial habitats of Southern Siberia and Mongolia, the size of the biomass formed by the species and the content of nitrogen in the thallus have been analyzed and summarized for the first time. Established in the study region was a location of 84 species. Most of them are confined to steppe, forest-steppe, and meadow plant communities. In the study area Nostoc is often found in forests, while in the mountain tundra it is seldom encountered. The species is able to dominate the vegetation cover of a number of anthropogenically disturbed habitats. As a result of assessing the size of the biomass formed by Nostoc in the steppe, meadow, meadow-forest plant communities of the region, the data were obtained, which, in general, are comparable to those for the steppe and meadow plant communities of Kirov Oblast, the Republic of Bashkiria, and Kazakhstan. Nostoc formed maximum biomass (37 g/m2) on the sod-carbonaceous thick soil of the steppe meadow in Irkutsk Oblast. In the thallus of Nostoc, from 2.7 to 5.1 % of the total nitrogen is accumulated, which exceeds the content of total nitrogen in green mosses and litter of grassy plants of steppe phytocenoses by 2–3 times. The species of Nostoc of the steppe, forest-steppe, meadow plant communities of Southern Siberia and Mongolia contain the same amount of nitrogen as the samples of this species from the zonal tundra of northern Russia.

Keywords

• Cyanoprokaryota
• Nostoc commune
• distribution
• biomass
• total nitrogen
• Southern Siberia
• Mongolia