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Abiotic and biotic controls of soil dissolved organic nitrogen along a precipitation gradient on the Tibetan plateau

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Abstract

Background and aims

Dissolved organic nitrogen (DON) has been increasingly recognized as a crucial component of the terrestrial nitrogen (N) cycle that regulates the ecosystem feedback to climate change. Yet, little information is available about the factors that control soil DON in the alpine ecosystems of the Tibetan Plateau, a region that is extremely sensitive to climate change.

Methods

Here, we examined the relationship between DON and climate, plant, and soil attributes along a precipitation gradient in five alpine ecosystems (alpine wetland, alpine meadow, alpine shrub, alpine steppe, and alpine desert) across 20 sites that were up to 4000 km apart on the Tibetan Plateau.

Results

Results showed that soil DON concentration varied significantly across these alpine ecosystems, and had a positive relationship with mean annual precipitation. Belowground biomass, soil moisture, micro biomass carbon (MBC), and soil total phosphorus (TP) explained 84% of the variation in DON concentrations. The percentage of DON in soil total dissolved N (TDN) varied with vegetation type, with the lowest percentage observed in the alpine meadow (52%) and the highest in the alpine desert (77%), indicating the slow turnover of DON into inorganic N in systems with low litter input and microbial activity.

Conclusions

Precipitation and plant biomass input determine the concentration and turnover of soil DON on the Tibetan Plateau. A warmer and wetter climate that has been predicted for the Tibetan grasslands may lead to a larger and more active DON pool.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20050104), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2016YFC0501802), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31672474, 31872994). This research was also supported by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NE/I012303/1), The Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research (STEP) program (Grant No. 2019QZKK0302).We thank Runkui Li in the university of CAS for helping us to finish the Figures.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Alpine Ecology, Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Lili Jiang, Shiping Wang, Fandong Meng & Yaoming Li

  2. Key Laboratory of Adaptation and Evolution of Plateau Biota, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining, China

    Zhenhua Zhang & Caiyun Luo

  3. College of Life Sciences, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zhe Pang, Yichao Rui & Yanfen Wang

  4. school of agriculture and forest, Hulunbuir College, Hulunbuir, 021008, Inner Mongolia, China

    Changshun Wang

  5. Jiangxi Province Key Laboratory of Watershed Ecosystem Change and Biodiversity, Center for Watershed Ecology, Institute of Life Science and School of Life Sciences, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, China

    Zhichun Lan

  6. School of Ecological and Environmental Sciences, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200241, China

    Xiaoqi Zhou

  7. School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, UK

    Davey L. Jones

  8. Department of Soil Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, 53706, USA

    Yichao Rui

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  1. Lili Jiang
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Correspondence to Yanfen Wang.

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Jiang, L., Wang, S., Pang, Z. et al. Abiotic and biotic controls of soil dissolved organic nitrogen along a precipitation gradient on the Tibetan plateau. Plant Soil 459, 65–78 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-020-04613-1

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