Abstract
Aims
Plant stoichiometry is known to influence ecological processes and element cycles in ecosystems, which in turn can all be affected by ongoing climate change. While previous studies mainly focused on warming, drought or species invasion, effects of changing water supply on plant stoichiometry have not been well explored.
Methods
To study how water supply affects plant stoichiometry (here C:N, N:P), and whether such effects differ among plant species, a manipulative experiment was conducted in which four grass species (Leymus chinensis, Stipa grandis, Artemisia frigida and Potentilla acaulis) dominant in the Inner Mongolia steppe were subjected to a gradient of water supply via changes in growing-season rainfall.
Results
Water supply significantly impacted C:N and N:P, and these effects differed among grass species. Specifically, while C:N of A. frigida and P. acaulis was unaffected by water supply, C:N of L. chinensis and S. grandis increased with increasing precipitation. Furthermore, N:P of A. frigida showed a unimodal pattern along the imposed precipitation gradient. Whereas aboveground and belowground N:P showed similar trends (but different patterns) with changing water supply, this was not the case for aboveground and belowground C:N. As a result, plant stoichiometry between aboveground and belowground parts followed an allometric pattern.
Conclusions
Changes in water supply can significantly modulate plant stoichiometry. These results could improve our understanding of the dynamics of grasslands under climate change.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge Jinhua Li for the field assistance, and thank Yang Wang for the assistance of measuring the soil traits. Yongjie Liu holds a fund from the Key Research and Development Program of Forestry and Grassland Administration of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, China-“Study on Construction Mode and Key Technology of Grassland Ecological Civilization Demonstration Area in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region”, and a star-up fund from Lanzhou University (508000-561119213). This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41571505).
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Liu, Y., Li, G., Wang, M. et al. Effects of water supply on plant stoichiometry of C, N, P in Inner Mongolia grasslands. Plant Soil 491, 115–132 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05467-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05467-5