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Hierarchical responses of plant stoichiometry to nitrogen deposition and mowing in a temperate steppe

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Abstract

Background and aims

Stoichiometric relations drive powerful constraints on many ecosystem processes. However, our understanding of the hierarchical responses of plant C:N:P stoichiometry at different levels of biological organization to global change factors remains limited.

Methods

we examined the plant C:N:P stoichiometric responses to N deposition and mowing (hay making) at both species- and community-level by carrying out a 4-year field experiment in the temperate steppe of northern China.

Results

Our results showed that N addition and mowing resulted in higher plant N concentrations, lower C:N, and higher N:P at both species- and community-level. Mowing had a limited negative influence on the effects of N addition. We observed divergent responses of both plant P concentrations and C:P to N addition at species-level and community-level: N addition led to higher plant P and lower C:P at species-level, but this effect was not observed at the community-level.

Conclusions

Our results indicate that stoichiometric responses at community-level to N addition and mowing diverge from more traditionally examined species-specific responses. Our results suggest that the hierarchical responses of plant stoichiometry to anthropogenic disturbance deserves more attention when we model the interactions of terrestrial ecosystem C, N, and P cycling under scenarios of increasing N availability concomitantly occurring with active land management.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the staff in the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station (IMGERS) for facilitating this study. We gratefully acknowledge Xiaoliang Wang, Jianjun Chen, Yingjie Dong, Meilan Li, Yuqin Zong, Hongying Li, Minglu Rong, Baorong Cui for field and laboratory works, two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. This study was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (41273094, 31170433, and 41173086), the State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change (LVEC-2012kf08), and the State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology (LFSE2013-13), and Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB15010403). Authors declared no conflict of interests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China

    Xu Han, Yun-Hai Zhang & Xing-Guo Han

  2. State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, 110164, China

    Xu Han, Xiao-Tao Lü & Xing-Guo Han

  3. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xu Han & Yun-Hai Zhang

  4. Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA

    Seeta A. Sistla

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  1. Xu Han
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  4. Xiao-Tao Lü
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Correspondence to Xiao-Tao Lü.

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Han, X., Sistla, S.A., Zhang, YH. et al. Hierarchical responses of plant stoichiometry to nitrogen deposition and mowing in a temperate steppe. Plant Soil 382, 175–187 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-014-2154-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-014-2154-1

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