Abstract
Purpose
Ammonium and nitrate are the main components of anthropogenic nitrogen (N) from atmosphere, while their ratio varies worldwide. However, it remains unclear whether forest soil ecosystem changes differ when various ratios of mixed N are added.
Methods
Ammonium and nitrate were mixed in different ratios (3:7, 4:6, 5:5, 6:4, and 7:3) and forest soils were fertilized for four years. Then, the soil pH, microbial biomass, enzymatic activities, and organic carbon (SOC) were determined. The potential mechanism was analyzed using structural equation modeling.
Results
Ammonium addition induced a greater fungal biomass decrease than nitrate addition (-0.618 vs. -0.329). The fungal biomass decrease further led to a decline in degradation enzymes, which resulted in SOC accumulation. Phosphatase activity increased and correlated with C-degrading enzymatic activities after N addition, indicating that phosphorous may become the limiting factor that controls degradation. Both ammonium and nitrate addition caused soil acidification (P < 0.05), but the acidification did not affect the enzymatic activities (P > 0.05). Moreover, when the added mixed N component ratios were closer to the ambient N component ratios, fewer changes in soil microbial biomass, enzymatic activities, and SOC were observed. This can be explained by the home-field advantage, because soil microbes may have adapted more readily to the ambient N components of the sample site and display fewer responses when the added N is nearly similar to the ambient N types.
Conclusion
When designing N addition field experiments, the type of N compounds should be considered, besides the amount and duration.
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Code availability
The R code in the manuscript were set as Supplementary Material 1.
Data availability
All raw data supporting the results in the manuscript were set as Supplementary Material 2.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge Prof. Luna Yan for her thorough revision of the manuscript. We thank Shinewrite (http://www.shinewrite.com) for the English language editing during the preparation of this manuscript.
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This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei, China (C2020208001) and Foundation of Talent Training Project of Hebei, China (A201901041).
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[Peng Guo] conceived the study, realized the fertilization experiment, and maintained the plots. [Lingfang Yang] and [Dongyan Kong] conducted laboratory measurements. [Peng Guo] and [Han Zhao] analyzed data. [Peng Guo] compiled the data and wrote the manuscript. All authors contributed to, commented, and agreed on the final version.
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Guo, P., Yang, L., Kong, D. et al. Differential effects of ammonium and nitrate addition on soil microbial biomass, enzymatic activities, and organic carbon in a temperate forest in North China. Plant Soil 481, 595–606 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05663-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05663-3