Altitudinal patterns and controls of plant and soil nutrient concentrations and stoichiometry in subtropical China

He, Xingyuan; Hou, Enqing; Yang, Liuyan; Wen, Dazhi

doi:10.1038/srep24261

Cited by 117 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…influences nutrient limitation. But as a whole, this effect was relatively weak in our datasets (see Figure 4), which is consistent the conclusions of other regional studies that elevation had no-or only a low-impact on NP limitations (He, Hou, Liu, & Wen, 2016;Reed et al, 2012;Sundqvist, Liu, Giesler, & Wardle, 2014).…”

Section: Phosphorus Limitationsupporting

confidence: 92%

Soil parent material—A major driver of plant nutrient limitations in terrestrial ecosystems

Augusto

Achat

Jonard

et al. 2017

Global Change Biology

288

231

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Because the capability of terrestrial ecosystems to fix carbon is constrained by nutrient availability, understanding how nutrients limit plant growth is a key contemporary question. However, what drives nutrient limitations at global scale remains to be clarified. Using global data on plant growth, plant nutritive status, and soil fertility, we investigated to which extent soil parent materials explain nutrient limitations. We found that N limitation was not linked to soil parent materials, but was best explained by climate: ecosystems under harsh (i.e., cold and or dry) climates were more N-limited than ecosystems under more favourable climates. Contrary to N limitation, P limitation was not driven by climate, but by soil parent materials. The influence of soil parent materials was the result of the tight link between actual P pools of soils and physical-chemical properties (acidity, P richness) of soil parent materials. Some other ground-related factors (i.e., soil weathering stage, landform) had a noticeable influence on P limitation, but their role appeared to be relatively smaller than that of geology. The relative importance of N limitation versus P limitation was explained by a combination of climate and soil parent material: at global scale, N limitation became prominent with increasing climatic constraints, but this global trend was modulated at lower scales by the effect of parent materials on P limitation, particularly under climates favourable to biological activity. As compared with soil parent materials, atmospheric deposition had only a weak influence on the global distribution of actual nutrient limitation. Our work advances our understanding of the distribution of nutrient limitation at global scale. In particular, it stresses the need to take soil parent materials into account when investigating plant growth response to environment changes.

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Section: Phosphorus Limitationsupporting

confidence: 92%

Soil parent material—A major driver of plant nutrient limitations in terrestrial ecosystems

Augusto

Achat

Jonard

et al. 2017

Global Change Biology

288

231

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“…We applied high nutrient levels early in life history to simulate nutrient pulses that occur at snowmelt when seedlings first emerge (Groffman et al, 2001(Groffman et al, , 2011Gavazov et al, 2017) and to enhance seedling establishment (Villar-Salvador et al, 2012;Gan et al, 2015). After vernalization, we reduced nutrient levels to a low (1×) of 5 ppm N and high (10×) of 50 ppm N through the remainder of the study to reflect high vs. low values documented across elevational gradients (Ranelli et al, 2015;He et al, 2016;Drollinger et al, 2017).…”

Section: Experimental Designmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resource availability alters fitness trade‐offs: implications for evolution in stressful environments

MacTavish

Anderson

2020

American J of Botany

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Premise Industrialization and human activities have elevated temperatures and caused novel precipitation patterns, altering soil moisture and nutrient availability. Predicting evolutionary responses to climate change requires information on the agents of selection that drive local adaptation and influence resource acquisition and allocation. Here, we examined the contribution of nutrient and drought stress to local adaptation, and we tested whether trade‐offs across fitness components constrain or facilitate adaptation under resource stress. Methods We exposed 35 families of Boechera stricta (Brassicaceae) to three levels of water and two levels of nutrient supply in a factorial design in the greenhouse. We sourced maternal families from a broad elevational gradient (2499–3530 m a.s.l.), representing disparate soil moisture and nutrient availability. Results Concordant with local adaptation, maternal families from arid, low‐elevation populations had enhanced fecundity under severe drought over those from more mesic, high‐elevation sites. Furthermore, fitness trade‐offs between growth and reproductive success depended on the environmental context. Under high, but not low, nutrient levels, we found a negative phenotypic relationship between the probability of reproduction and growth rate. Similarly, a negative phenotypic association only emerged between fecundity and growth under severe drought stress, not the benign water treatment levels, indicating that stressful resource environments alter the direction of trait correlations. Genetic covariances were broadly concordant with these phenotypic patterns. Conclusions Despite high heritabilities in all fitness components across treatments, trade‐offs between growth and reproduction could constrain adaptation to increasing drought stress and novel nutrient levels.

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“…Subtropical forest soils are highly weathered, strongly acidic, and P deficient, and their stoichiometric ratios of organic carbon (C), N and P are further evidence that they are P‐limited (He, Hou, Liu, & Wen, ; Lu, Mao, Gilliam, Luo, & Mo, ; Ushio, Fujiki, Hidaka, Kitayama, & Poorter, ; Xu et al., ). Temperate forest soils have higher concentrations of organic C, N and P than subtropical forest soils, and are relatively rich in P compared with N (Xu et al., ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting responses of phosphatase kinetic parameters to nitrogen and phosphorus additions in forest soils

et al. 2017

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Abstract1. Global changes include increasing nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) deposition, which affect microbial nutrient demand and biogeochemical cycles. The responses of P-mineralizing enzymes to these global change components are poorly defined and are not specified in forest soils differing in P content.2. We chose one site in a P-rich and two sites in P-poor forests and established sixteen 20 × 20 m plots at each site. Control, either N only, P only, or combined N and P, were randomly distributed through each forest site with four replicates. We investigated the effects of N and P additions over 4 years on the phosphomonoesterase potential activity (V max ), its half-saturation constant (K m ) and its catalytic efficiency (V max /K m ).3. Without N and P additions, the enzyme kinetic parameters V max , K m and V max /K m were higher in P-rich than in P-poor forest soils. These parameters increased with soil pH, SOC, TN and TP contents increased.4. Remarkably, P additions caused the V max and K m to increase in P-rich soils, but had no effect on V max /K m . P additions to P-poor soils resulted in a decrease in the V max /K m via the inhibitory effects of inorganic P on the V max . N additions had no effect on the V max /K m in P-rich and P-poor soils because of the similar increases in the V max and K m . The effects of combined N and P and P only additions to P-poor soils on the V max and K m were similar, but were stronger than the effects of N only or P only additions on the P-rich soils.5. Phosphatase kinetic parameters were positively related to the availability of N and P in P-rich soils, but inorganic P inhibited phosphatase activity and caused a decrease in the catalytic efficiency in P-poor soils. More microbial community groups could contribute to the secretion of a broader spectrum of iso-enzymes under combined additions of N and P in P-rich soils. We conclude contrast responses of phosphatase kinetics to P and N inputs in P-rich and P-poor forest soils, while long-term N deposition might mitigate P limitation by increasing phosphatase secretion.

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Altitudinal patterns and controls of plant and soil nutrient concentrations and stoichiometry in subtropical China

Cited by 117 publications

References 58 publications

Soil parent material—A major driver of plant nutrient limitations in terrestrial ecosystems

Soil parent material—A major driver of plant nutrient limitations in terrestrial ecosystems

Resource availability alters fitness trade‐offs: implications for evolution in stressful environments

Contrasting responses of phosphatase kinetic parameters to nitrogen and phosphorus additions in forest soils

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