Abstract
Purpose
Drylands are generally drought-stressed and have low soil fertility. While negative effects of drought on vegetation productivity are undisputed, it is unclear whether water limits productivity alone or in combination with low nitrogen (N) availability (N supply relative to plant N demand).
Methods
One aridity transect was established in each – the Loess Plateau (LP), Inner Mongolia Plateau (MP), and Tibetan Plateau (TP). Concentrations and δ15N of soil and leaf at the species level were measured, and ecosystem N processes were simulated using DeNitrification-DeComposition model.
Results
Model simulations of total N supply and its components (N deposition, biological N2 fixation, and gross N mineralization) and modelled gross primary productivity (plant N demand) decreased with increasing aridity. δ15Nsoil and community-weighted δ15Nleaf of non-N2-fixing species increased with aridity, however, difference in δ15N between soil and leaf (δ15NSoil-leaf) exhibited an increasing trend with aridity in MP and TP. δ15NSoil-leaf at LP was variable but did not change significantly with aridity. These results implied that N availability increased with aridity in MP and TP but remained low due to high plant N demand in LP. We found that δ15NSoil-leaf is a better indicator of N availability than δ15Nsoil and δ15Nleaf. Vegetation productivity was negatively correlated with water availability, but not with N availability along aridity gradients, indicating that vegetation productivity in these ecosystems was constrained by water rather than N availability.
Conclusion
Whether vegetation productivity is limited by N availability in drylands depends on how much water is available for plant growth.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and/or analyzed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
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Acknowledgements
We thank the “Functional Trait database of terrestrial ecosystems in China (China_Traits)” for sharing all auxiliary plant and soil data. Ancillary meteorological data are available from China Meteorological Data Service Center (http://data.cma.cn/). Thanks are due to the contributions and thoughtful comments of the anonymous reviewers that improved the manuscript.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41991234, 32001137), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA23070202.
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JW and XFW planned and designed the research. JW performed experiments and analyzed the data. The authors jointly wrote the manuscript. The authors contributed critically to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Wang, J., Wen, X. Divergent responses of nitrogen availability to aridity in drylands. Plant Soil 482, 111–125 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05673-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-022-05673-1