Abstract
Despite the fact that winter lasts for a third of the year in the temperate grasslands, winter processes in these ecosystems have been inadequately represented in global climate change studies. While climate change increases the snow depth in the Mongolian Plateau, grasslands in this region are also simultaneously facing high pressure from land use changes, such as grazing, mowing, and agricultural cultivation. To elucidate how these changes affect the grasslands’ winter nitrogen (N) budget, we manipulated snow depth under different land use practices and conducted a 15NH415NO3-labeling experiment. The change in 15N recovery during winter time was assessed by measuring the 15N/14N ratio of root, litter, and soils (0–5 cm and 5–20 cm). Soil microbial biomass carbon and N as well as N2O emission were also measured. Compared with ambient snow, the deepened snow treatment reduced total 15N recovery on average by 21.7% and 19.2% during the first and second winter, respectively. The decrease in 15N recovery was primarily attributed to deepened snow increasing the soil temperature and thus microbial biomass. The higher microbial activity under deepened snow then subsequently resulted in higher gaseous N loss. The N2O emission under deepened snow (0.144 kg N ha−1) was 6.26 times than that of under ambient snow (0.023 kg N ha−1) during the period of snow cover and spring thaw. Although deepened snow reduced soil 15N recovery, the surface soil N concentration remained unchanged after five years’ deepened snow treatment because deepened snow reduced soil N loss via wind erosion by 86%.
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Data availability
The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Li Zhang, XiaoQin Zhu, ShuMin Zhang, and other members of Analytical and Testing Center for their help in the laboratory work, and Prof. Yongfei Bai and Dr. Yang Wang for their support in the field work.
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The codes that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.
Funding
This study was financially supported by the Chinese National Key Development Program for Basic Research (2016YFC0500701, 2019YFA0607301) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31988102).
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Lingli Liu and Zhou Jia designed the experiment. Zhou Jia performed the experiment. Zhou Jia and Lingli Liu wrote the manuscript. Ping Li, Yuntao Wu, Sen Yang, Chengzhang Wang, Bin Wang, Lu Yang, Xin Wang, Jing Li, Ziyang Peng, Lulu Guo, and Weixing Liu contributed to fieldwork and sample processing and data analysis.
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Jia, Z., Li, P., Wu, Y. et al. Deepened snow cover alters biotic and abiotic controls on nitrogen loss during non-growing season in temperate grasslands. Biol Fertil Soils 57, 165–177 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-020-01514-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00374-020-01514-4