TY - JOUR
T1 - The impact of nitrogen enrichment on grassland ecosystem stability depends on nitrogen addition level
AU - Niu, Decao
AU - Yuan, Xiaobo
AU - Cease, Arianne
AU - Wen, Haiyan
AU - Zhang, Chunping
AU - Fu, Hua
AU - Elser, James
N1 - Funding Information:
This study was supported by National Basic Research Program of China (2016YFC0500506; 2014CB138703), the National Basic Research Program for Science and Technology in China (2012FY111900), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31572458, 31201837, 41671106, and 31602001) and Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University (IRT13019). The authors are grateful to the Semi-Arid Climate and Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University (SACOL) for providing the meteorological data and supporting the fieldwork. We would like to thank Zhuo An, Yi Yang, Huige Han and Zeqin Teng for their help with sample collection and analysis.
Funding Information:
This study was supported by National Basic Research Program of China ( 2016YFC0500506 ; 2014CB138703 ), the National Basic Research Program for Science and Technology in China ( 2012FY111900 ), National Natural Science Foundation of China ( 31572458 , 31201837 , 41671106 , and 31602001 ) and Changjiang Scholars and Innovative Research Team in University ( IRT13019 ). The authors are grateful to the Semi-Arid Climate and Environment Observatory of Lanzhou University (SACOL) for providing the meteorological data and supporting the fieldwork. We would like to thank Zhuo An, Yi Yang, Huige Han and Zeqin Teng for their help with sample collection and analysis.
PY - 2018/3/15
Y1 - 2018/3/15
N2 - Increasing atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition may affect plant biodiversity, subsequently altering ecosystem stability. While a few studies have explored how simulated N deposition affects community stability and its underlying mechanisms, the experimental levels of N addition used are usually higher than current and future N deposition rates. Thus, their results could produce highly uncertain predictions of ecosystem function, especially if the responses to N deposition are nonlinear. We conducted a manipulative experiment that simulated elevated atmospheric N deposition with several N addition levels to evaluate the effect of N deposition on ecosystem stability and its underlying mechanisms in a semiarid grassland in northern China. Here we show that N addition altered community diversity, reducing species richness, evenness, diversity and dominance. In addition, we found that N addition at current N deposition levels had no significant impact on community stability. In contrast, N addition at levels from 4.6 to 13.8 g N m− 2 yr− 1 significantly decreased community stability, although community stability for the 13.8 g N m− 2 yr− 1 treatment was higher than that for the 4.6 g N m− 2 yr− 1 treatment. These results indicate that the response of community stability to N enrichment is nonlinear. This nonlinear change in community stability was positively correlated with species asynchrony, species richness, and species diversity as well as the stability of dominant species and the stability of the grass functional group. Our data suggest a need to re-evaluate the mechanisms responsible for the effects of N deposition on natural ecosystem stability across multiple levels of N enrichment and that additional experimentation with gradients of N loads more similar to future atmospheric N deposition rates is needed.
AB - Increasing atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition may affect plant biodiversity, subsequently altering ecosystem stability. While a few studies have explored how simulated N deposition affects community stability and its underlying mechanisms, the experimental levels of N addition used are usually higher than current and future N deposition rates. Thus, their results could produce highly uncertain predictions of ecosystem function, especially if the responses to N deposition are nonlinear. We conducted a manipulative experiment that simulated elevated atmospheric N deposition with several N addition levels to evaluate the effect of N deposition on ecosystem stability and its underlying mechanisms in a semiarid grassland in northern China. Here we show that N addition altered community diversity, reducing species richness, evenness, diversity and dominance. In addition, we found that N addition at current N deposition levels had no significant impact on community stability. In contrast, N addition at levels from 4.6 to 13.8 g N m− 2 yr− 1 significantly decreased community stability, although community stability for the 13.8 g N m− 2 yr− 1 treatment was higher than that for the 4.6 g N m− 2 yr− 1 treatment. These results indicate that the response of community stability to N enrichment is nonlinear. This nonlinear change in community stability was positively correlated with species asynchrony, species richness, and species diversity as well as the stability of dominant species and the stability of the grass functional group. Our data suggest a need to re-evaluate the mechanisms responsible for the effects of N deposition on natural ecosystem stability across multiple levels of N enrichment and that additional experimentation with gradients of N loads more similar to future atmospheric N deposition rates is needed.
KW - Community stability
KW - Loess Plateau
KW - Nitrogen deposition
KW - Plant diversity
KW - Portfolio effects
KW - Species asynchrony
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U2 - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.318
DO - 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2017.09.318
M3 - Article
C2 - 29054613
AN - SCOPUS:85031691186
SN - 0048-9697
VL - 618
SP - 1529
EP - 1538
JO - Science of the Total Environment
JF - Science of the Total Environment
ER -