Contrasting patterns of community-weighted mean traits and functional diversity in driving grassland productivity changes under N and P addition

Frontiers in Plant Science

Plant Science

Yuting Yang¹  Ronglei Zhou¹  Zhongming Wen²  Bingcheng Xu²  Zhifei Chen³  Wei Li⁴  Chengqin Ding⁴  Hossein Ghanizadeh⁵ 

[1] College of Grassland Agriculture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China;College of Grassland Agriculture, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China;Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China;College of Life Sciences, Guizhou University, Guiyang, Guizhou, China;Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Shaanxi, China;School of Agriculture and Environment, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand;

关键词: leaf traits;    root traits;    community functional structure;    fertilization;    semiarid grassland;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpls.2023.1145709

 received in 2023-01-16, accepted in 2023-07-28,  发布年份 2023

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Fertilization could influence ecosystem structure and functioning through species turnover (ST) and intraspecific trait variation (ITV), especially in nutrient limited ecosystems. To quantify the relative importance of ITV and ST in driving community functional structure and productivity changes under nitrogen (N) and phosphorous (P) addition in semiarid grasslands. In this regard, we conducted a four-year fertilizer addition experiment in a semiarid grassland on the Loess Plateau, China. We examined how fertilization affects species-level leaf and root trait plasticity to evaluate the ability of plants to manifest different levels of traits in response to different N and P addition. Also, we assessed how ITV or ST dominated community-weighted mean (CWM) traits and functional diversity variations and evaluated their effects on grassland productivity. The results showed that the patterns of plasticity varied greatly among different plant species, and leaf and root traits showed coordinated variations following fertilization. Increasing the level of N and P increased CWM_specific leaf area (CWM_SLA), CWM_leaf N concentration (CWM_LN) and CWM_maximum plant height (CWM_Hmax) and ITV predominate these CWM traits variations. As a results, increased CWM_Hmax, CWM_LN and CWM_SLA positively influenced grassland productivity. In contrast, functional divergence decreased with increasing N and P and showed negative relationships with grassland productivity. Our results emphasized that CWM traits and functional diversity contrastingly drive changes in grassland productivity under N and P addition.

【 授权许可】

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Copyright © 2023 Yang, Chen, Xu, Ghanizadeh, Li, Ding, Zhou and Wen