Water availability modifies productivity response to biodiversity and nitrogen in long‐term grassland experiments

Kazanski, Clare E.; Cowles, Jane; Dymond, Salli; Clark, Adam Thomas; David, Aaron S.; Jungers, Jacob M.; Kendig, Amy E.; Riggs, Charlotte E.; Trost, Jared J.; Wei, Xiaojing

doi:10.1002/eap.2363

Cited by 8 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…In drier years such as 2016 (822 mm) and 2017 (886 mm), plants may be water stressed and unable to use additional N because water limitation dominates (He and Dijkstra 2014 ). More work is needed to understand how N deposition and climate change might interact to affect plant communities in the future (Komatsu et al 2019 ; Kazanski et al 2021 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen addition and fungal symbiosis alter early dune plant succession

et al. 2023

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Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) enrichment can have complex effects on plant communities. In low-nutrient, primary successional systems such as sand dunes, N enrichment may alter the trajectory of plant community assembly or the dominance of foundational, ecosystem-engineering plants. Predicting the consequences of N enrichment may be complicated by plant interactions with microbial symbionts because increases in a limiting resource, such as N, could alter the costs and benefits of symbiosis. To evaluate the direct and interactive effects of microbial symbiosis and N addition on plant succession, we established a long-term field experiment in Michigan, USA, manipulating the presence of the symbiotic fungal endophyte Epichloë amarillans in Ammophila breviligulata, a dominant ecosystem-engineering dune grass species. From 2016 to 2020, we implemented N fertilization treatments (control, low, high) in a subset of the long-term experiment. N addition suppressed the accumulation of plant diversity over time mainly by reducing species richness of colonizing plants. However, this suppression occurred only when the endophyte was present in Ammophila . Although Epichloë enhanced Ammophila tiller density over time, N addition did not strongly interact with Epichloë symbiosis to influence vegetative growth of Ammophila . Instead, N addition directly altered plant community composition by increasing the abundance of efficient colonizers, especially C 4 grasses. In conclusion, hidden microbial symbionts can alter the consequences of N enrichment on plant primary succession. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00442-023-05362-5.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nitrogen addition and fungal symbiosis alter early dune plant succession

et al. 2023

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“…The BioCON soil is an Entisol, more specifically, a mixed, frigid Lamellic Udipsamments as per the USDA soil taxonomy (O'Geen et al, 2017, Soil Survey Staff, 1999. This excessively drained soil, derived from glacial outwash with a coarse structure, has very poor development and a sandy texture (92-94% sand and 2-3% clay in the top 114 cm) (Kazanski et al, 2021, O'Geen et al, 2017. In summary, there were four CO 2 ×N treatments among 296 plots: ambient atmospheric CO 2 & ambient N supply (aCO 2 -aN), eCO 2 -aN, aCO 2 & enriched N supply (aCO 2 -eN), and eCO 2 -eN with 13 each treatment having 74 plots (biological replicates).…”

Section: Biocon Datasets For Model Calibration and Validationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil enzymes as indicators of soil function: a step toward greater realism in microbial ecological modeling

Wang¹

2023

Preprint

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Soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles and their complex responses to environmental changes have received increasing attention. However, large uncertainties in model predictions remain, partially due to the lack of explicit representation and parameterization of microbial processes. One great challenge is to effectively integrate rich microbial functional traits into ecosystem modeling for better predictions. Here, using soil enzymes as indicators of soil function, we developed a competitive dynamic enzyme allocation scheme and detailed enzyme-mediated soil inorganic N processes in the Microbial-ENzyme Decomposition (MEND) model. We conducted a rigorous calibration and validation of MEND with diverse soil C-N fluxes, microbial C:N ratios, and functional gene abundances from a 12-year CO2&#215;N grassland experiment (BioCON) in Minnesota, USA. In addition to accurately simulating soil CO2 fluxes and multiple N variables, the model correctly predicted microbial C:N ratios and their negative response to enriched N supply. Model validation further showed that, compared to the changes in simulated enzyme concentrations and decomposition rates, the changes in simulated activities of eight C-N associated enzymes were better explained by the measured gene abundances in responses to elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration. Our results demonstrated that using enzymes as indicators of soil function and validating model predictions with functional gene abundances in ecosystem modeling can provide a basis for testing hypotheses about microbially-mediated biogeochemical processes in response to environmental changes. Further development and applications of the modeling framework presented here will enable microbial ecologists to address ecosystem-level questions beyond empirical observations, toward more predictive understanding, an ultimate goal of microbial ecology.

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“…The BioCON soil is an Entisol, more specifically, a mixed, frigid Lamellic Udipsamments as per the USDA soil taxonomy (O'Geen et al, 2017;Soil Survey Staff, 1999). This excessively drained soil, derived from glacial outwash with a coarse structure, has very poor development and a sandy texture (92-94% sand and 2-3% clay in the top 114 cm) (Kazanski et al, 2021;O'Geen et al, 2017). In summary, there were four CO 2 ×N treatments among 296 plots: ambient atmospheric CO 2 & ambient N supply (aCO 2 -aN), eCO 2 -aN, aCO 2 & enriched N supply (aCO 2 -eN), and eCO 2 -eN with each treatment having 74 plots (biological replicates).…”

Section: Biocon Datasets For Model Calibration and Validationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Soil enzymes as indicators of soil function: A step toward greater realism in microbial ecological modeling

Wang

Gao

Yang

et al. 2021

Global Change Biology

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Soil carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles and their complex responses to environmental changes have received increasing attention. However, large uncertainties in model predictions remain, partially due to the lack of explicit representation and parameterization of microbial processes. One great challenge is to effectively integrate rich microbial functional traits into ecosystem modeling for better predictions. Here, using soil enzymes as indicators of soil function, we developed a competitive dynamic enzyme allocation scheme and detailed enzyme-mediated soil inorganic N processes in the Microbial-ENzyme Decomposition (MEND) model. We conducted a rigorous calibration and validation of MEND with diverse soil C-N fluxes, microbial C:N ratios, and functional gene abundances from a 12-year CO 2 × N grassland experiment (BioCON) in Minnesota, USA. In addition to accurately simulating soil CO 2 fluxes and multiple N variables, the model correctly predicted microbial C:N ratios and their negative response to enriched N supply. Model validation further showed that, compared to the changes in simulated enzyme concentrations and decomposition rates, the changes in simulated activities of eight C-N-associated enzymes were better explained by the measured gene abundances in responses to elevated atmospheric CO 2 concentration. Our results demonstrated that using enzymes as indicators of soil function and validating model predictions with functional gene abundances in ecosystem modeling can provide a basis for testing hypotheses about microbially mediated biogeochemical processes in response to environmental changes. Further development and applications of the modeling framework presented here will enable microbial ecologists to address ecosystem-level questions beyond empirical observations, toward more predictive understanding, an ultimate goal of microbial ecology.

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Water availability modifies productivity response to biodiversity and nitrogen in long‐term grassland experiments

Cited by 8 publications

References 62 publications

Nitrogen addition and fungal symbiosis alter early dune plant succession

Nitrogen addition and fungal symbiosis alter early dune plant succession

Soil enzymes as indicators of soil function: a step toward greater realism in microbial ecological modeling

Soil enzymes as indicators of soil function: A step toward greater realism in microbial ecological modeling

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