Abstract
Background
Increased atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition and altered precipitation regimes could change soil element availability and uptake by grassland plants. Identifying taxonomic or plant functional group-specific responses may provide a new perspective to explore the effects of N and water addition on community composition.
Methods
Nitrogen addition and irrigation experiment was conducted using a split-plot design. We added 10 g N m− 2 yr− 1 twice per year and/or 15 mm of water once per week and cumulatively 180 mm during the growing season. We determined foliar concentrations of seven mineral nutrients (Ca, K, Mg, Cu, Zn, Mn, Fe) and one beneficial element (Na) in grassland plants.
Results
Nitrogen addition as urea significantly decreased soil exchangeable Ca and Mg concentrations, but increased soil available Fe, Mn, and Zn concentrations, because of acidification. Under N addition, foliar Mn, Na concentrations increased, but foliar Fe concentrations decreased. Dicotyledons and sedges showed a stronger increase of foliar Mn and corresponding decrease of Fe concentrations than monocotyledons (without sedges) under N addition. Furthermore, Ca and K concentrations in monocotyledons and sedges increased, while that in dicotyledons remained unchanged under N addition.
Conclusion
Our results suggest that the variations in foliar and soil element concentrations are mainly attributable to N-induced acidification. Meanwhile, irrigation increased the concentrations of base cations, weakening the impacts of N by alleviating soil acidification. The response of the nutrient concentrations in leaves to N addition varied among plant families and functional groups possibly contributing to changes in changes in plant community composition.
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Data availability
We confirm that, should the manuscript be accepted, the data supporting the results will be archived in Dryad and the data DOI will be included at the end of the article.
Code Availability
Not applicable.
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Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the Duolun Restoration Ecology Research Station for supporting the field work and Andrea Cavalieri for helpful comments and English language editing. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 32271655), Major Special Science and Technology Project of Liaoning Province (2020JH1/10300006), and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2018M640196).
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Yong Jiang conceived the ideas and designed the research; Jiangping Cai, Jialin Fu and Heyong Liu performed the experiments and collected the data; Jiangping Cai, Xue Feng and Tianpeng Li analysed the data; Jiangping Cai wrote the manuscript; Jiayu Lu, Ruzhen Wang and Yong Jiang contributed to the interpretation of the results and the revision of the manuscript.
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Cai, J., Fu, J., Liu, H. et al. Divergent responses of leaf mineral nutrient concentrations among plant families and functional groups to nitrogen addition and irrigation in a semi-arid grassland. Plant Soil 491, 21–31 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05904-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-023-05904-z