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Effects of water and nitrogen addition on vegetation carbon pools in a semi-arid temperate steppe

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Abstract

Global change will lead to increases in regional precipitation and nitrogen (N) deposition in the semi-arid grasslands of northern China. We investigated the responses of vegetation carbon (C) pools to simulated precipitation and N deposition increases through field experiments in a typical steppe in Inner Mongolia. The treatments included NH4NO3 addition at concentrations of 0 (CK), 5 (LN, low nitrogen), 10 (middle nitrogen, MN), and 20 (HN, high nitrogen) (g m−2 a−1) with and without water. After three consecutive years of treatment, from 2010 to 2012, water addition did not significantly change the size of the total vegetation C pools, but it significantly decreased the ratio of root:shoot (R:S) (P = 0.05) relative to controls. By contrast, N addition significantly increased the total vegetation C pools. The C pools in the LN, MN and HN treatments increased by 22, 39 and 44 %, respectively. MN produced the largest effect among the N concentrations, although differences between N-added treatments were not significant (P > 0.05). N addition significantly reduced the ratio of root:shoot (R:S) (P = 0.03). However, there were no significant interactive effects of water and N addition on the vegetation C pools.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the Inner Mongolia Grassland Ecosystem Research Station (IMGERS) for their field assistance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, People’s Republic of China

    Junqiang Jia, Yunshe Dong, Yuchun Qi, Qin Peng, Xinchao Liu, Liangjie Sun, Shufang Guo, Yunlong He, Congcong Cao & Zhongqing Yan

  2. University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, People’s Republic of China

    Junqiang Jia, Shufang Guo, Yunlong He, Congcong Cao & Zhongqing Yan

  3. Grassland Research Institute, Inner Mongolia Academy of Agricultural & Animal Husbandry Sciences, Huhehot, 010031, People’s Republic of China

    Xinchao Liu

  4. College of Land and Environment, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, 110866, People’s Republic of China

    Liangjie Sun

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  1. Junqiang Jia
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Correspondence to Yunshe Dong or Yuchun Qi.

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Project funding: This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 41373084, 41330528, and 41203054), and the Special Fund for Agro-scientific Research in the Public Interest (No. 201203012).

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Corresponding editor: Zhu Hong

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Jia, J., Dong, Y., Qi, Y. et al. Effects of water and nitrogen addition on vegetation carbon pools in a semi-arid temperate steppe. J. For. Res. 27, 621–629 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11676-015-0128-7

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