Impacts of an exotic disease and vegetation change on foliar calcium cycling in Appalachian forests.

Because of the high calcium content of its foliage, Cornus florida (flowering dogwood) has been described as a calcium "pump" that draws calcium from deeper mineral soil and enriches surface soil horizons. However, over the last two decades an exotic fungal disease (dogwood anthracnose, Discula destructiva) has decimated populations of this once-common understory species. Its loss, combined with forest stand development, could alter intra-stand calcium cycling. We used data from long-term vegetation monitoring plots to examine the ecological role of C. florida in calcium cycling and to identify changes in annual foliar calcium cycling over a 20-year period between two sampling intervals, 1977-1979 (preanthracnose) and 1995-2000 (post-anthracnose). Published equations were used to estimate foliar biomass per species for five forest types: alluvial, typic cove, acid cove, oak-hickory, and oak-pine. Calcium concentrations derived from foliage samples were used to estimate annual foliar calcium production per species for understory woody stems (<20 cm dbh) and total foliar calcium production for overstory stems (> or =20 cm dbh). At a given level of soil calcium availability, C. florida foliage contained greater concentrations of calcium than three other dominant understory species (Tsuga canadensis, Acer rubrum, and Rhododendron maximum). Between 1977-1979 and 1995-2000, the annual calcium contributions of understory woody vegetation declined across all forest types, ranging from 26% in oak-pine stands to 49% in acid coves. Loss of C. florida was responsible for only 13% of this decline in oak-pine stands, but accounted for 96% of the decline in typic coves. In oak-hickory and oak-pine stands, we observed large increases in the foliar biomass of T. canadensis, a species whose calcium-poor foliage increases soil acidity. Increases in overstory foliar biomass and calcium offset understory losses in three forest types (alluvial, typic coves, and oak-pine) but not in oak-hickory and acid cove stands. Overall, calcium cycling in oak-hickory stands was more negatively affected by the loss of C. florida than the other forest types. Oak-hickory forests comprise over a third of the total forest cover in the eastern United States, and decreases in annual calcium cycling could have cascading effects on forest biota.