Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
College/Unit
Davis College of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Design
Department/Program/Center
Forest Resource Management
Abstract
Background
Many regions in the world are experiencing changes in precipitation pattern, which likely impact soil nitrogen cycling and availability. However, we know little about how soil nitrogen processes respond to drought stress under climate change.
Methods
A continuous 5-year experiment of throughfall reduction treatment (TRT) was conducted in a Castanopsis hystrix plantation in subtropical China to assess how soil nitrogen processes responded to a change in precipitation. Net nitrogen transformation, soil properties, microbial biomass carbon (MBC) and nitrogen (MBN), and microbial community phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs as bacteria, fungi and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)) were investigated in the wet and dry seasons over the period of the manipulation experiment.
Results
TRT had no significant effects on net ammonification rate (NAR) and nitrogen mineralization rate (NMR), and the unchanged NAR and NMR were mainly caused by the no change of soil nitrogen availability (i.e. NH4+-N, NO3−-N and dissolved organic nitrogen). However, TRT significantly increased net nitrification rate (NNR) in the wet season primarily due to the increase in NO3− concentration, and might be further caused by reduced NO3− leaching, denitrification or NO3−-N uptake in the TRT. Differently, TRT significantly decreased the NNR in the dry season, which might be linked to the limited SWC that resulted in greater microbial nitrate immobilization than gross nitrate mineralization. In addition, TRT significantly influenced the soil microbial community composition in 0–10 cm soil layer in the wet season, primarily due to the variations in NO3−-N, DOC and DON.
Conclusions
Precipitation reduction affected the NNR rather than NAR and NMR, and consequently, further affected soil N availability and N uptake by Castanopsis hystrix.
Digital Commons Citation
Chen, Li; Wen, Yuanguang; Zeng, Ji; Wang, Hui; Wang, Jingxin; Dell, Bernard; and Liu, Shirong, "Differential Responses of Net N Mineralization and Nitrification to Throughfall Reduction in a Castanopsis Hystrix Plantation in Southern China" (2019). Faculty & Staff Scholarship. 2138.
https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/faculty_publications/2138
Source Citation
Chen, L., Wen, Y., Zeng, J., Wang, H., Wang, J., Dell, B., & Liu, S. (2019). Differential responses of net N mineralization and nitrification to throughfall reduction in a Castanopsis hystrix plantation in southern China. Forest Ecosystems, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40663-019-0174-2
Comments
Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.