Invasive nitrogen-fixing plants increase nitrogen availability and cycling rates in a montane tropical grassland

Raghurama, Manaswi; Sankaran, Mahesh

doi:10.1007/s11258-021-01188-4

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Meanwhile, the effects of legumes on N fixation and soil N cycling were greater in soils with low N than in soils with high N (Mueller et al, 2013; Wei et al, 2019). In addition, this low background soil N level leads to a greater relative effect of legumes on soil NH 4 + in forests and grasslands than in croplands (Figure S5a), which thus leads to higher R min and R nit given the significant contribution of R nit to R min (Raghurama & Sankaran, 2022; Yao et al, 2019). The significantly smaller effects of legumes in croplands were primarily because of the harvest of aboveground biomass and due to severe anthropogenic perturbations, such as tillage and fertilization.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leguminous plants significantly increase soil nitrogen cycling across global climates and ecosystem types

Gou

Qiu

Shao

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Leguminous plants are an important component of terrestrial ecosystems and significantly increase soil nitrogen (N) cycling and availability, which affects productivity in most ecosystems. Clarifying whether the effects of legumes on N cycling vary with contrasting ecosystem types and climatic regions is crucial for understanding and predicting ecosystem processes, but these effects are currently unknown. By conducting a global meta-analysis, we revealed that legumes increased the soil net N mineralization rate (R min ) by 67%, which was greater than the recently reported increase associated with N deposition (25%). This effect was similar for tropical (53%) and temperate regions (81%) but was significantly greater in grasslands (151%) and forests (74%) than in croplands (−3%) and was greater in in situ incubation (101%) or short-term experiments (112%) than in laboratory incubation (55%) or long-term experiments (37%). Legumes significantly influenced the dependence of R min on N fertilization and experimental factors. The R min was significantly increased by N fertilization in the nonlegume soils, but not in the legume soils. In addition, the effects of mean annual temperature, soil nutrients and experimental duration on R min were smaller in the legume soils than in the nonlegume soils. Collectively, our results highlighted the significant positive effects of legumes on soil N cycling, and indicated that the effects of legumes should be elucidated when addressing the response of soils to plants.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Leguminous plants significantly increase soil nitrogen cycling across global climates and ecosystem types

Gou

Qiu

Shao

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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“…While planting Fabaceae species should generally be applied with caution considering their potential to fertilize the soil and promote invasive species (e.g. Raghurama & Sankaran 2022), planting native ones in campo rupestre has been shown to keep soil fertility low enough while controlling invasive grasses (Nogueira et al 2019). Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) on eroded quartzitic outcrops not only improve vegetation cover, but also increase nutrient availability (Medeiros et al 2023).…”

Section: The Ecology Threats and Challenges To Campo Rupestre Restora...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ten principles for restoring campo rupestre, a threatened tropical, megadiverse, nutrient‐impoverished montane grassland

Arruda

Medeiros

Fiorini

et al. 2023

Restoration Ecology

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To achieve the ambitious goals of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, restoration frameworks should embrace the diversity of ecosystems found on Earth, including open‐canopy ecosystems, which have been largely overlooked. Considering the paucity of scientific foundations promoting restoration science, policy, and practice for open tropical ecosystems, we provide overarching guidelines to restore the campo rupestre, a Neotropical, open megadiverse grassland that has been increasingly threatened by multiple human activities, especially mining. Restoration techniques for tropical grasslands are still at its infancy, and attempts to restore campo rupestre have had, so far, low to moderate success, highlighting the need for a tailored restoration framework. In a scenario of increasing degradation and scarcity of on‐site restoration experiments, we propose 10 principles to improve our ability to plan, implement, and monitor restoration in campo rupestre: (1) include socioeconomic dimensions, (2) implement active restoration, (3) keep low soil fertility, (4) restore disturbance regimes, (5) address genetic structure and adaptation potential, (6) restore geographically restricted and specialized ecological interactions, (7) incorporate functional approaches, (8) use seed‐based restoration strategies to enhance biodiversity, (9) translocation is inevitable, and (10) long‐term monitoring is mandatory. Our principles represent the best available evidence to support better science and practice for the restoration of campo rupestre and, to some extent, can be useful for other megadiverse, fire‐prone, and nutrient‐poor ecosystems.

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“…The abundance of symbiotic N‐fixing plants in a community is expected to determine the potential N‐fixation capacity of communities (Vitousek et al, 2013), while realised fixation rates further depend on a suite of local abiotic and biotic factors (Dovrat & Sheffer, 2019; Wurzburger & Ford, 2014; Yuan & Chen, 2015). Furthermore, the effect of N‐fixation extends well beyond nitrogen availability and individual plants (Raghurama & Sankaran, 2021; Taylor & Menge, 2021), and ultimately influences ecosystem‐level properties (Jeffers et al, 2015; Vitousek et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The nitrogen‐fixing potential of plant communities depends on climate and land management

Lepik

Al‐Quraishy

Davison

et al. 2023

Journal of Biogeography

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Aim The occurrence, relative richness and abundance of N‐fixing plants are the main features of the N‐fixing potential of vascular plant communities. We aimed to unveil how climate, biome type and land management regime affect the N‐fixing potential of vegetation. Since the world is witnessing an invincible transition of all those environmental factors during the last century, we examined the global growth trends of N‐fixers throughout recent history. Location Global. Taxon Vascular plant species. Materials and Methods We conducted a meta‐analysis of publicly available vegetation data from 290 communities. Combined with the species' N‐fixation capability, we examined the occurrence, abundance and richness of N‐fixing vascular species across varying climate conditions, land use regimes and potential habitat types. Results There are relatively more N‐fixing vascular plants in warmer and drier climatic conditions. Management of communities by cutting woody plants, grazing and mowing hay increases the number and abundance of N‐fixing species. The effect of management is pronounced in wet conditions, where a dense canopy would otherwise emerge. As a result, semi‐natural grasslands exhibit higher N‐fixer occurrence than natural grasslands and non‐tropical forests, cessation of management results in a temporary increase in the abundance of N‐fixers. Repeated observations of sites indicated that the global occurrence of N‐fixers increased slightly in managed communities from 1906 to 2018, but there were no other temporal trends. Main conclusions The overall number of N‐fixers in plant communities is low. The occurrence, relative richness and abundance of N‐fixing species are higher in sparse vegetation in dry climates and in extensive management where biomass is removed from communities. A probable explanation is the high light availability in dry vegetation and due to biomass removal, which provides a competitive advantage to light‐demanding N‐fixers. A lack of consistent temporal trends suggests that global change is not yet an active driver of N‐fixing potential in plant communities.

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Invasive nitrogen-fixing plants increase nitrogen availability and cycling rates in a montane tropical grassland

Cited by 8 publications

References 58 publications

Leguminous plants significantly increase soil nitrogen cycling across global climates and ecosystem types

Leguminous plants significantly increase soil nitrogen cycling across global climates and ecosystem types

Ten principles for restoring campo rupestre, a threatened tropical, megadiverse, nutrient‐impoverished montane grassland

The nitrogen‐fixing potential of plant communities depends on climate and land management

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