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Grazing increases below-ground biomass and net primary production in a temperate grassland

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Abstract

Background and aims

Grazing can affect the stock and flow of C between above and below-ground vegetation layers. Components of below-ground stratum are one of the less studied. The goals of this research were: 1) to characterize and estimate the vertical distribution of below-ground biomass in grazed and ungrazed areas during a growing season, and 2) to evaluate grazing effects on below-ground net primary production (BNPP).

Methods

Below-ground biomass was cored four times to 100 cm depth during a growing season on three paired grazed-ungrazed areas in South-central Uruguayan grasslands. BNPP was estimated using both field data and CENTURY model.

Results

On average, below-ground biomass was higher in grazed (1417 gm−2) than in ungrazed areas (945 gm−2) and showed a marked reduction in relation with soil depth. Turnover rates were 0.40 and 0.37 years−1 in grazed and ungrazed areas respectively. Field data and CENTURY simulation showed higher BNPP in grazed areas (1.86; 0.77 gm−2days−1 respectively) than in ungrazed areas (1.07; 0.67 gm−2days−1 respectively).

Conclusions

Grazed areas showed higher below-ground biomass, BNPP and turnover that ungrazed areas. Grazing has an important role in regulating both stock and dynamics of C in grassland ecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

We particularly appreciate the assistance in the field work of G. Fernández, F. Gallego, S. Baeza, C. Bagnato, B. Costa, A. Guido, E. Leoni, F. Lezama, A.L. Mello, G. Parodi and F. Pezzani, and we thank Andrea Geymonat and Andrea Corona for technical assistance. We thank G. Piñeiro and two anonymous reviewers for useful comments on the manuscript. We thank the owners of “El Relincho”, who provided us with support and field facilities. Funding: Research was partially funded by Instituto Nacional de Investigación Agropecuaria (FPTA 175), and Agencia Nacional de Investigación e Innovación (BE-POS-2009-781). This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research (IAI) CRN3095 which is supported by the US National Science Foundation (Grant GEO-1128040).

Compliance with ethical standards

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Instituto de Ecología y Ciencias Ambientales, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República, Iguá 4225, 11400, Montevideo, Uruguay

    Luis López-Mársico, Alice Altesor & José M. Paruelo

  2. Laboratorio de Análisis Regional y Teledetección and Departamento de Métodos Cuantitativos y Sistemas de Información, IFEVA and Facultad de Agronomía, Universidad de Buenos Aires and CONICET, Av. San Martín 4453, C1417DSE, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    Mariano Oyarzabal, Pablo Baldassini & José M. Paruelo

Authors
  1. Luis López-Mársico
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  2. Alice Altesor
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  3. Mariano Oyarzabal
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  4. Pablo Baldassini
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  5. José M. Paruelo
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Correspondence to Luis López-Mársico.

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Responsible Editor: John A. Kirkegaard.

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López-Mársico, L., Altesor, A., Oyarzabal, M. et al. Grazing increases below-ground biomass and net primary production in a temperate grassland. Plant Soil 392, 155–162 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-015-2452-2

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