Nutrient Enrichment of Wetland Vegetation and Sediments in Subtropical Pastures

Land use practices exert a major influence on plant productivity, soil and plant nutrient content, and within‐stand nutrient cycling in wetlands in agricultural landscapes. We examined differences between improved and seminative pastures in plant and soil nutrient characteristics in seasonally flooded wetlands in subtropical grazing land of south central Florida. The wetlands were embedded within either grazed improved pastures with a long‐term history of fertilizer application or seminative pastures with no history of previous fertilizer application. Soil nutrient concentrations decreased with soil depth for both land use types. Total C, N, and P were significantly greater ( P < 0.05) in the 0‐ to 15‐cm mineral layer compared with the deeper layers (15–30, 30–45 cm) for both improved and seminative pasture wetland soils. Improved pasture wetlands had greater amounts of total P (22.3 kg P ha −1 ) in the upper 0‐ to 15‐cm soil layer than did the seminative pasture wetlands (15.7 kg P ha −1 ). Plant and soil (0–15 cm) N/P and C/P ratios were lower in improved pasture wetlands compared with seminative pasture wetlands, suggesting greater P enrichment in improved pasture wetlands. Microbial biomass C and N decreased with soil depth in both pasture types. Soil microbial biomass C/total C ratios decreased with soil depth and were similar for both improved and seminative pasture wetlands. Our results suggest that plant and soil nutrient enrichment and storage in temporary wetlands may be impacted by adjacent land use practices, which potentially leads to the alteration of the structure and functions of these wetland ecosystems.