Abstract
Aim
Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are two major limiting factors in terrestrial ecosystems. Excessive N applications alter ecosystem functions by causing nutrient imbalances with P. Yet, little is known about why and how the balance between N and P regulates soil multifunctionality –the simultaneous provision of multiple soil functions–.
Methods
We explored how P additions regulated the responses of soil multifunctionality to different levels of N fertilization (10, 20, 40 g N m−2 yr−1) using a mesocosm experiment in a temperate grassland in China.
Results
Nitrogen alone and P addition increased multifunctionality at rate of ≤10 and 20 g N m−2 yr−1, respectively. However, the magnitude of positive effects decreased with N additions over this level. P additions increased multifunctionality resistance to N at low rate of ≤10 g m−2 yr−1 compared to higher N levels. Soil N:P stoichiometry and plant diversity played dominant roles in regulating soil multifunctionality.
Conclusions
We found that a balanced combination of N and P additions (20:10) can help maintain the highest multifunctionality in this temperate grassland. The results provide new insights that through P addition, we could better manage soil multifunctionality and increase its resistance to expected fertilization scenarios (≤ 10 g m−2 yr−1).
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Acknowledgements
We greatly thank Jing Gao, Wanling Xu and Xue dong with their help in collecting soil and plant samples in the field. The constructive comments and suggestions from Matthew Bowker and another two anonymous reviewers help improve the quality of this manuscript. This study was supported by the National key Research and development program of China (2016YFC0500602), National Natural Science Foundation of China (31,570,470, 31,870,456), the fundamental research funds for the central universities (2412018ZD010), and the program of introducing talents of discipline to universities (B16011). M.D-B. is supported by the Spanish government under Ramón y Cajal (RYC2018–025483-I) and the BES grant (MUSGONET). H.C. acknowledges support from Chinese scholarship council (CSC). The authors declare no interest conflict
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H.C., W.S. and M.D.B. designed the experiment and created the original idea of the manuscript. H.C analysed all of the functions with the help of W.S. and K.W. in the lab. WZ.S. and X.L. provided great help to collect plant and soil samples in field work. H.C. performed all of statistical analyses and wrote the first manuscript with the help of M.D.B., W.S. and J-Y.M. All the authors contributed substantially to the revisions of the final manuscript.
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Table S1
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Fig. S1
Abridged general view of the mesocosm experiment design (a) and seven soil functions (b) after three-year N and P over-fertilization treatments with soil columns in situ from the temperate meadow steppe in Northeast China (PNG 29 kb)
Fig. S2
Effects of different N and P application rates on plant above-ground biomass (a), plant species richness (b), soil pH (c), and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal biomass (AMF; d) using two-way ANOVA. The values are means (±1SE, n = 8) (PNG 129 kb)
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Cui, H., Sun, W., Delgado-Baquerizo, M. et al. Phosphorus addition regulates the responses of soil multifunctionality to nitrogen over-fertilization in a temperate grassland. Plant Soil 473, 73–87 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04620-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04620-2