10.5061/DRYAD.74F3B
Ren, Haiyan
Inner Mongolia Agricultural University
Xu, Zhuwen
Institute of Applied Ecology
Isbell, Forest
University of Minnesota
Huang, Jianhui
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Han, Xingguo
Institute of Applied Ecology
Wan, Shiqiang
Henan University
Chen, Shiping
Chinese Academy of Sciences
Wang, Ruzhen
Institute of Applied Ecology
Zeng, De-Hui
Institute of Applied Ecology
Jiang, Yong
Institute of Applied Ecology
Fang, Yunting
Institute of Applied Ecology
Data from: Exacerbated nitrogen limitation ends transient stimulation of
grassland productivity by increased precipitation
Dryad
dataset
2017
ecosystem level
Species level
Grassland productivity
2005-2014
species relative abundance
2017-03-15T14:45:47Z
2017-03-15T14:45:47Z
en
https://doi.org/10.1002/ecm.1262
10792 bytes
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CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication
Given that plant growth is often water-limited in grasslands, it has been
proposed that projected increases in precipitation could increase plant
productivity and carbon sequestration. However, the existing evidence for
this hypothesis comes primarily from observational studies along natural
precipitation gradients or from short-term manipulative experiments. It
remains unclear whether long-term increased precipitation persistently
stimulates grassland productivity. In the world's largest remaining
temperate grassland, we found that experimentally increased precipitation
enhanced net primary production, soil available nitrogen and foliar
nitrogen concentrations during the first six years, but it ceased to do so
in the following four years, unless nitrogen was simultaneously added with
water. The 15N enrichment of plant and soil nitrogen pools in later years
indicates increased nitrogen losses, which exacerbated nitrogen limitation
and ended the stimulation of productivity by increased precipitation.
Changes in species abundance might have contributed little to the changes
in water treatment effects. Our study demonstrates that the long-term
response of grassland ecosystems to increased precipitation will be
mediated by nitrogen availability. Our results also point to a shift from
co-limitation by water and nitrogen early to perhaps limitation by
nitrogen only later in this temperate grassland, highlighting significant
variations in the type of resource limitation induced by climate change.
Plant productivity in Inner Mongolia grasslandOur data were collected from
a 10-year manipulative experiment which simulated nitrogen deposition and
water addition in field.ECM16-0096.R2_UploadData.csv
Inner Mongolia
China