Nitrogen addition reduced ecosystem stability regardless of its impacts on plant diversity

Liu, Jushan; Li, Xiaofei; Ma, Quanhui; Zhang, Xiang; Chen, Ying; Isbell, Forest; Wang, Deli

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13187

Cited by 79 publications

(66 citation statements)

References 59 publications

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“…Moreover, community destabilization associated with enrichment was not revealed by diversity measures, only by increased turnover in species' relative abundances over time (see also Liu et al, 2019). These results, combined with other terrestrial and marine studies showing that effects varied across time, abiotic drivers or scales of organization (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Environmental context shapes the long‐term role of nutrients in driving producer community trajectories in a top–down dominated marine ecosystem

2020

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1. Two predominant anthropogenic impacts on ecosystems, nutrient enrichment and the removal of consumers, are predicted to interact in their effects on producer diversity. Yet, measures of diversity alone may not capture changes occurring in the underlying mechanisms structuring communities. Furthermore, evidence for these interactions in rocky intertidal systems is mixed and may be confounded by variable baseline productivity or short experimental durations that do not capture seasonality, environmental heterogeneity or successional processes. 2. We conducted a 2-year experiment examining the main and interactive effects of nutrients and herbivores in a low-productivity environment on the northern shore of Cook Strait near Wellington, New Zealand. We explicitly accounted for the small-scale spatial environmental heterogeneity characteristic of rocky shores. 3. Rapid and dramatic shifts in diversity metrics and cover of algal communities in the first year were driven by removal of herbivores. Within 2 months of herbivore exclusion, open space decreased from >90% to <15%, regardless of nutrient addition, and both algal diversity and evenness plummeted while species richness rose. 4. In contrast to theoretical predictions, strong interactions between top-down and bottom-up forces on diversity were rare; rather, over time, the addition of nutrients negatively impacted diversity. Further, where herbivores were removed, nutrients inhibited succession beyond ephemeral forms, contrasting with the tolerance model of succession observed under ambient nutrients. 5. The effects of nutrients were only elucidated by accounting for variation in habitat complexity and seasonality, demonstrating that environmental heterogeneity can mask bottom-up processes. Moreover, shifts in relative species abundances revealed that after 10 months, nutrient addition caused increased community turnover regardless of herbivore presence or absence, indicating reduced stability not apparent in simple measures of diversity. 6. Synthesis. Our results suggest that nutrient addition and herbivore reduction exert strong but mostly independent control on community biodiversity, where context | 2457

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 54%

Environmental context shapes the long‐term role of nutrients in driving producer community trajectories in a top–down dominated marine ecosystem

2020

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“…Varied effects, such as positive, negative and even no effects of N addition on plant communities, have been observed in numerous ecosystems (e.g. Liu et al, ; Niu et al, ; Su et al, ; Xu et al, ). For instance, in a semi‐arid grassland of northern China, Niu et al () found that plant community stability was significantly reduced at N addition levels from 4.6 to 13.8 g N m −2 year −1 .…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, atmospheric N deposition is estimated to increase from 0.05 to 2.0 g N m −2 year −1 world‐wide (Galloway et al, ) and has increased from 1.3 to 2.1 g N m −2 year −1 in China (Liu et al, ). An increasing number of studies have found that N deposition could lead to increases in ANPP but declines in plant diversity and ecosystem stability (Clark & Tilman, ; Liu et al, ; Xu, Jiang, & Zhou, ). Furthermore, the response of plant communities to N addition could be mediated by environmental factors, particularly precipitation (Reichmann, Sala, Peters, & Debra, ; Tian et al, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, atmospheric N deposition is estimated to increase from 0.05 to 2.0 g N m −2 year −1 world-wide (Galloway et al, 2008) and has increased from 1.3 to 2.1 g N m −2 year −1 in China ). An increasing number of studies have found that N deposition could lead to increases in ANPP but declines in plant diversity and ecosystem stability (Clark & Tilman, 2008;Liu et al, 2019;Xu, Jiang, & Zhou, 2016).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Nitrogen deposition magnifies the sensitivity of desert steppe plant communities to large changes in precipitation

et al. 2019

Journal of Ecology

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Precipitation alteration and nitrogen (N) deposition caused by anthropogenic activities could profoundly affect the structure and functioning of plant communities in arid ecosystems. However, the plant community impacts conferred by large temporal changes in precipitation, especially with a concurrent increase in N deposition, remain unclear. To address this uncertainty, from 2016 to 2017, an in situ field experiment was conducted to examine the effects of five precipitation levels, two N levels and their interaction on the plant community function and composition in a desert steppe in northern China. Above‐ground net primary production (ANPP) and plant community‐weighted mean (CWM) height significantly increased with increasing precipitation, and both were well fitted with a positive linear model, but with a higher slope under N addition. The ANPP increase was primarily driven by the increase in Artemisia capillaris, a companion forb sensitive to precipitation variation. The plant community composition shifted with precipitation enhancement—from a community dominated by Stipa tianschanica, a perennial grass, to a community dominated by Artemisia capillaris. Synthesis. The findings imply that the ecosystem sensitivity to future changes in precipitation variability will be mediated by two potential mechanisms: concurrent N deposition and plant community‐level change. It is suggested that we should consider the vegetation compositional shift and multiple resource colimitation in assessing the sensitivity of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change.

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“…In a very interesting study, Liu et al [74] used structural equation modelling to identify the likely causal mechanisms linking fertilization, biodiversity and ES in a Chinese grassland ( Figure 3). They found evidence for both direct and biodiversity-mediated effects of N-addition on two ecosystem services: aboveground net primary production and ecosystem stability.…”

Section: What Can We Learn From Experiments and Field Observations?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Incorporating Biodiversity into Biogeochemistry Models to Improve Prediction of Ecosystem Services in Temperate Grasslands: Review and Roadmap

et al. 2020

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Multi-species grasslands are reservoirs of biodiversity and provide multiple ecosystem services, including fodder production and carbon sequestration. The provision of these services depends on the control exerted on the biogeochemistry and plant diversity of the system by the interplay of biotic and abiotic factors, e.g., grazing or mowing intensity. Biogeochemical models incorporate a mechanistic view of the functioning of grasslands and provide a sound basis for studying the underlying processes. However, in these models, the simulation of biogeochemical cycles is generally not coupled to simulation of plant species dynamics, which leads to considerable uncertainty about the quality of predictions. Ecological models, on the other hand, do account for biodiversity with approaches adopted from plant demography, but without linking the dynamics of plant species to the biogeochemical processes occurring at the community level, and this hampers the models’ capacity to assess resilience against abiotic stresses such as drought and nutrient limitation. While setting out the state-of-the-art developments of biogeochemical and ecological modelling, we explore and highlight the role of plant diversity in the regulation of the ecosystem processes underlying the ecosystems services provided by multi-species grasslands. An extensive literature and model survey was carried out with an emphasis on technically advanced models reconciling biogeochemistry and biodiversity, which are readily applicable to managed grasslands in temperate latitudes. We propose a roadmap of promising developments in modelling.

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Nitrogen addition reduced ecosystem stability regardless of its impacts on plant diversity

Cited by 79 publications

References 59 publications

Environmental context shapes the long‐term role of nutrients in driving producer community trajectories in a top–down dominated marine ecosystem

Environmental context shapes the long‐term role of nutrients in driving producer community trajectories in a top–down dominated marine ecosystem

Nitrogen deposition magnifies the sensitivity of desert steppe plant communities to large changes in precipitation

Incorporating Biodiversity into Biogeochemistry Models to Improve Prediction of Ecosystem Services in Temperate Grasslands: Review and Roadmap

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