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Stoichiometry patterns of plant organ N and P in coastal herbaceous wetlands along the East China Sea: implications for biogeochemical niche

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Abstract

Background and aims

Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are essential nutrients for plant growth, and their availability and stoichiometry play pivotal roles in trophic dynamics and community composition. The biogeochemical niche (BN) hypothesis claims that each species should have an optimal elemental composition and stoichiometry as a consequence of its optimal function in its specific ecological niche. Little attention, however, has been given to N and P stoichiometric patterns and test the BN hypothesis in coastal wetland communities from the perspective of organ and species-specific comparisons.

Methods

We investigated factors responsible for changes in N and P stoichiometry patterns in different functional groups in coastal wetlands and tested the BN hypothesis by evaluating N and P composition in whole aboveground plants and organs.

Results

Both plant N and P concentrations were high in coastal wetlands, indicating that N and P were not likely limiting, although the N:P ratio was slightly lower than the ratio reported in global and Chinese terrestrial flora. N and P concentrations and N:P ratios varied strongly between C3 and C4 species, among species, and among organs within species. N and P concentrations were not correlated with latitude, mean annual temperature and precipitation, although N:P ratio was weakly correlated with these factors. The differences in N and P concentrations and N:P ratios along the wetland gradients were mainly because of the species-specific community composition of each site.

Conclusions

The results are consistent with the BN hypothesis. First, N and P composition is species-specific (homeostatic component of BN), each species tends to maintain its own composition even growing in different sites with different species composition. Second, different species, despite maintaining their own composition, have distinct degree of composition phenotypic flexibility (flexibility component of BN); this different size of “biogeochemical space” was observed when comparing different species living in the same community and the shifts in species BN space and size was observed when comparing populations of the same species living in different sites.

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Acknowledgments

This study was financially supported by the National Science and Technology Basic Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2013FY111800), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M630731), the National Science Foundation of China (41601102), the Program for Innovative Research Teams at the Fujian Normal University (IRTL1205), European Research Council Synergy grant (ERC-SyG-2013-610028 IMBALANCE-P), Spanish Government grant (CGL2016-79835-P), Catalan Government grant (SGR 2017-1005), the Key Foundation of Science and Technology Department of Fujian Province (2016R1032-1) and the Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (2015R1101029-7). We sincerely thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments. We would also like to sincerely thank Siang Wan, Qinyang Ji, Dengzhou Gao, Chao Dai, Lishan Tan, and Dongyao Sun for assistance with field sampling and laboratory analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Humid Sub-tropical Eco-geographical Process of Ministry of Education, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350007, China

    Minjie Hu, Zhigao Sun, Jiafang Huang, Qiuli Zhu & Chuan Tong

  2. School of Geographical Sciences, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, 350007, China

    Minjie Hu, Zhigao Sun, Jiafang Huang, Qiuli Zhu & Chuan Tong

  3. College of the Environment and Ecology, Xiamen University, Xiamen, 361002, China

    Minjie Hu

  4. CSIC, Global Ecology CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Bellaterra, 08193, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    Josep Peñuelas & Jordi Sardans

  5. CREAF, Cerdanyola del Vallès, 08193, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    Josep Peñuelas & Jordi Sardans

  6. Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, FL, 33199, USA

    Benjamin J. Wilson

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  1. Minjie Hu
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  2. Josep Peñuelas
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  3. Jordi Sardans
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  4. Zhigao Sun
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  8. Chuan Tong
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Correspondence to Chuan Tong.

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Hu, M., Peñuelas, J., Sardans, J. et al. Stoichiometry patterns of plant organ N and P in coastal herbaceous wetlands along the East China Sea: implications for biogeochemical niche. Plant Soil 431, 273–288 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-018-3759-6

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