Abstract
Unbalanced N and P input has substantially altered the relative importance of N and P limitation in grassland ecosystems, which resulted in profound impacts on species nutrient cycling, community structure, and ecosystem stability. However, the underlying species-specific nutrient use strategy and stoichiometric homeostasis in driving community structure and stability changes remain unclear. A split-plot N and P addition experiment (main-plot: 0, 25, 50, and 100 kgN hm−2 a−1; subplot: 0, 20, 40, and 80 kgP2O5 hm−2 a−1) was conducted during 2017–2019 in two typical grasslands (perennial grass and perennial forb) communities in the Loess Plateau. The stoichiometric homeostasis of 10 main component species, species dominance, stability changes, and their contribution to community stability were investigated. Perennial legume and perennial clonal species tend to perform higher stoichiometric homeostasis than non-clonal and annual forb. Large shifts in species with high homeostasis vs. low homeostasis caused by N and P addition showed consistently profound impacts on community homeostasis and stability in both communities. In both two communities, species dominance performed significantly positive relationships with homeostasis under no N and P addition. P alone or combined with 25 kgN hm−2 a−1 addition strengthened species dominance-homeostasis relationship and increased community homeostasis due to increased perennial legumes. Under 50 and 100 kgN hm−2 a−1 combined with P addition, species dominance-homeostasis relationships were weakened, and community homeostasis decreased significantly in both communities, which was due to that increased annual and non-clonal forb suppressed perennial legume and clonal species. Our results demonstrated that trait-based classifications of species-level homeostasis offer a reliable tool in predicting species performance and community stability under N and P addition, and conserving species with high homeostasis is important to enhance semiarid grassland ecosystem function stability on the Loess Plateau.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 41771553) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (no. 2016YFC0501703).
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The experiment was designed by Bingcheng Xu and Zhifei Chen. The experiments and data collection were conducted by Zhifei Chen, Junjie Zhou, Shuaibin Lai, Chunxia Jian, Yang Chen, and Yang Luo. The manuscript was written and edited by Bingcheng Xu and Zhifei Chen, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Chen, Z., Zhou, J., Lai, S. et al. Species differences in stoichiometric homeostasis affect grassland community stability under N and P addition. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 61913–61926 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26479-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26479-3