Identification

Title

Essential oil content of Rhododendron tomentosum responds strongly to manipulation of ecosystem resources in Arctic Alaska

Abstract

The essential oils of the widely distributed boreal/Arctic dwarf shrub, Rhododendron tomentosum ssp. subarcticum (Harmaja) G.D. Wallace, have important ecological, cultural, medicinal, and commercial roles. To understand the relationship between resource limitation and essential oil content of this species we measured the amount and diversity of terpenes from shoots of plants exposed to a 14-year ecosystem resource manipulation experiment in Arctic Alaska. Treatments tested interactive effects of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) addition, warming and N + P fertilization, and shading and N + P fertilization. The controls and NP fertilization had the highest essential oil content, whereas shading and P addition had less than 20% of the control content. Warming reduced essential oil content to <65% of that of the controls. Essential oil components varied greatly among the treatments, with significant differences in the expression of specific essential oil components. Large changes in plant community composition and ecosystem structure in response to treatments likely played a large role in the response of R. tomentosum. Our data suggest that resource changes in response to climate warming and its secondary effects on light and nutrient availability have the potential to change the profiles of essential oils in R. tomentosum, with important ecological and cultural impacts.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7hm5d9w

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2022-09-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact