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Nitrogen isotope composition characteristics of modern plants and their variations along an altitudinal gradient in Dongling Mountain in Beijing

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Abstract

Through the systematic investigation of nitrogen isotope composition (δ 15N) in modern plants in Dongling Mountain in Beijing, the characteristics of δ 15N in plants, the differences of δ 15N among plants with different functional types, and the altitudinal trends of plant δ 15N values revealed the environmental effects on δ 15N. Our results are: (1) the values of δ 15N of plants in Dongling Mountain range between −8.0‰ and 14.0‰, with an average value of −1.03‰; (2) δ 15N values are variant among different plant functional types. Generally, the δ 15N of shrubs are smaller than that of trees, and larger than that of herbaceous plants. The main reason may be the selective absorption of variant nitrogen resource with different δ 15N values in soil; (3) there is a second-order polynomials relationship between the altitudes and the average δ 15N values of plants, which shows a negative and positive correlation below and above 1350 m a.s.l., respectively. This indicates that the precipitation is a main controlling factor of plant 15N fractionation for the former, and the temperature for the latter; (4) three different, i.e., positive, negative, and no significant, correlations are performed between δ 15N of individual species and altitudes. This may be related to different inherited characteristics and the process of nitrogen metabolize; and (5) variant altitudinal trends of plant δ 15N are associated with different 15N composition of soil at different altitude, for which the key influencing factors are the changing temperature and precipitation with altitude rather than nitrogen content in leaf.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Geography and Planning, Ludong University, Yantai, 264025, China

    XianZhao Liu, JiaZhu Li & Qing Wang

  2. Key Laboratory of Plant-Soil Interactions, Ministry of Education, College of Resources and Environmental Sciences, China Agricultural University, Beijing, 100193, China

    GuoAn Wang

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  1. XianZhao Liu
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Correspondence to XianZhao Liu.

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This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 40673017) and Discipline Construction Founds of Ludong University

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Liu, X., Wang, G., Li, J. et al. Nitrogen isotope composition characteristics of modern plants and their variations along an altitudinal gradient in Dongling Mountain in Beijing. Sci. China Ser. D-Earth Sci. 53, 128–140 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-009-0175-z

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