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Plants
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Ecology and Nutrient Cycling in Grasslands
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Ecology and Nutrient Cycling in Grasslands

A special issue of Plants (ISSN 2223-7747). This special issue belongs to the section "Plant Ecology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 March 2023) | Viewed by 6594

Special Issue Editor

Prof. Dr. Jianhui Huang

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
Interests: grassland ecology; plant litter decomposition; photosynthetic C exchange; nutrient resorption; nutrient cycling

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Globally, grasslands are distributed around the world, covering 31–43% of the earth’s surface. Current global climate change has severely impacted the ecology and ecosystem functioning in grasslands and human activities, such as nutrient fertilization and grazing, may further intensify such effects leading to the degradation of grasslands. As the management of grasslands becomes more intense, nutrient input from fertilizer and output by animal products becomes more important. Nutrient cycles are the transport of nutrients between and within biotic and abiotic components of an ecosystem, and the pools of and fluxes among the following components, including soil, plant, and animal, are kernel to understanding nutrient cycling in grassland ecosystems. This Special Issue will focus on the following inter-correlated topics: the conversion of insoluble to soluble forms of nutrients and their interaction with microbes in the soil; nutrient inputs from the atmosphere, fertilizers, and biological nitrogen fixation; outputs as leaching and run-off, volatilization, denitrification, loss of nitrogen oxides during mineralization, and transfer off-site by grazers; plant nutrient uptake, recycling, resorption, and release; and nutrients transferred between litter and microorganism. Herbivores also play important roles in grassland nutrient cycling, and nutrients transferred from plants returned soils as excreta and urine. Changes in the above-mentioned processes with an increase in human activities through fossil fuel burning and the production of fertilizers are being seen around the world.

Prof. Dr. Jianhui Huang
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • grassland carbon sequestration
  • nitrogen enrichment
  • nitrogen loss
  • nutrient balance
  • plant nutrient uptake
  • plant–animal interaction
  • plant–microbe interaction
  • soil nitrogen transformation

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 1837 KiB  
Article
Effects of Spring Drought and Nitrogen Addition on Productivity and Community Composition of Degraded Grasslands
by Shaoning Li, Shaowei Lu, Xiaohui Li, Xingchen Hou, Xi Zhao, Xiaotian Xu and Na Zhao
Plants 2023, 12(15), 2836; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12152836 - 31 Jul 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1424
Abstract
To explore whether there were differences among the patterns of response of grasslands with different levels of degradation to extreme drought events and nitrogen addition, three grasslands along a degradation gradient (extremely, moderately, and lightly degraded) were selected in the Bashang area of [...] Read more.
To explore whether there were differences among the patterns of response of grasslands with different levels of degradation to extreme drought events and nitrogen addition, three grasslands along a degradation gradient (extremely, moderately, and lightly degraded) were selected in the Bashang area of northern China using the human disturbance index (HDI). A field experiment with simulated extreme spring drought, nitrogen addition, and their interaction was conducted during the growing seasons of 2020 and 2021. The soil moisture, aboveground biomass, and composition of the plant community were measured. The primary results were as follows. (1) Drought treatment caused soil drought stress, with moderately degraded grassland being the most affected, which resulted in an 80% decrease in soil moisture and a 78% decrease in aboveground biomass. The addition of nitrogen did not mitigate the impact of drought. Moreover, the aboveground net primary production (ANPP) in 2021 was less sensitive to spring drought than in 2020. (2) The community composition changed after 2 years of drought treatment, particularly for the moderately degraded grasslands with annual forbs, such as Salsola collina, increasing significantly in biomass proportion, which led to a trend of exacerbated degradation (higher HDI). This degradation trend decreased under the addition of nitrogen. (3) The variation in drought sensitivities of the ANPP was primarily determined by the proportion of plants based on the classification of degradation indicators in the community, with higher proportions of intermediate degradation indicator species exhibiting more sensitivity to spring drought. These findings can help to provide scientific evidence for the governance and restoration of regional degraded grassland under frequent extreme weather conditions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecology and Nutrient Cycling in Grasslands)
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20 pages, 2374 KiB  
Article
Short-Term Impact of Recycling-Derived Fertilizers on Their P Supply for Perennial Ryegrass (Lolium perenne)
by Lea Deinert, Israel Ikoyi, Bastian Egeter, Patrick Forrestal and Achim Schmalenberger
Plants 2023, 12(15), 2762; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants12152762 - 25 Jul 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2085
Abstract
Various nutrient recycling technologies are currently under development in order to alleviate the dependency of non-renewable raw material for the production of mineral phosphorus fertilizers commonly used in agriculture. The resulting products, such as struvites and ashes, need to be assessed for their [...] Read more.
Various nutrient recycling technologies are currently under development in order to alleviate the dependency of non-renewable raw material for the production of mineral phosphorus fertilizers commonly used in agriculture. The resulting products, such as struvites and ashes, need to be assessed for their application as so-called recycling-derived fertilizers (RDFs) in the agricultural sector prior to commercialization. Here, we conducted a short-term (54 days) trial to investigate the impact of different phosphorus fertilizers on plant growth and the soil P cycling microbiota. Lolium perenne was grown with application of superphosphate (SP) as inorganic fertilizer, two ashes (poultry litter ash (PLA) and sewage sludge ash (SSA)), and two struvites (municipal wastewater struvite (MWS) and commercial CrystalGreen® (CGS)) applied at 20 and 60 kg P ha−1 in four replicates. A P-free control (SP0) was also included in the trial. Struvite application increased plant dry weights, and available P acid phosphatase activity was significantly improved for struvites at the high P application rate. The ash RDFs showed a liming effect at 60 kg P ha−1, and PLA60 negatively affected acid phosphatase activity, while PLA20 had significantly lower phoD copy numbers. P mobilization from phosphonates and phytates was not affected. TCP solubilization was negatively affected by mineral SP fertilizer application at both P concentrations. The bacterial (16S and phoD) communities were only marginally affected by the tested P fertilizers. Overall, struvites appeared to be a suitable substitute for superphosphate fertilization for Irish L. perenne pastures. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecology and Nutrient Cycling in Grasslands)
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14 pages, 2690 KiB  
Article
Effects of 12-Year Nitrogen Addition and Mowing on Plant-Soil Micronutrients in a Typical Steppe
by Guoxiang Niu, Yinliu Wang, Guangyi Dai, Siwei Xie, Yiqian Jin, Junjie Yang and Jianhui Huang
Plants 2022, 11(22), 3042; https://doi.org/10.3390/plants11223042 - 10 Nov 2022
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2085
Abstract
Changes in soil micronutrient availability may have adverse consequences on grassland productivity, yet it’s still largely unclear how concurrent human practices, such as fertilization and mowing, affect micronutrient cycling in the plant-soil systems. Here, we measured six essential micronutrient (Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, [...] Read more.
Changes in soil micronutrient availability may have adverse consequences on grassland productivity, yet it’s still largely unclear how concurrent human practices, such as fertilization and mowing, affect micronutrient cycling in the plant-soil systems. Here, we measured six essential micronutrient (Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Co and Mo) contents in both plant pool (separated as aboveground plant parts, litter, and belowground roots) at the community level and soil pool (0–10 cm depth) after 12-year consecutive nitrogen (N) addition (0, 2, 10, and 50 g N m−2 year−1) and mowing in a typical steppe of the Mongolian Plateau. The results show that (i) medium-N (10 g m−2 year−1) and high-N (50 g m−2 year−1) addition rates significantly increased contents of soil-available Fe (+310.0%, averaging across the two N addition rates), Mn (+149.2%), Co (+123.6%) and Mo (+73.9%) irrespective of mowing treatment, whereas these addition treatments usually decreased contents of soil total Fe (−8.9%), Mn (−21.6%), Cu (−15.9%), Zn (−19.5%), Co (−16.4%) and Mo (−34.7%). (ii) Contents of Fe in aboveground plant parts, litter, and roots significantly decreased, whereas plant Mn increased with N addition. Contents of above ground plant Cu, Zn, Co, and Mo significantly decreased at high-N addition rate, whereas contents of micronutrients in roots and litters, except for Fe, generally increased with N addition. Moreover, the total amount of micronutrients in the plant pool (contents × biomass) significantly increased at the medium-N addition rate but decreased at the high-N addition rate. All N addition rates significantly enlarged the pool of litter micronutrients, and roots could hold more micronutrients under N addition, especially combined with mowing treatment. Importantly, although mowing could regulate the effects of N addition on variables (i) and (ii), the effects were weaker overall than those of N addition. (iii) Changes in root micronutrients, except for Mn, could explain corresponding changes in plant micronutrients (R2: 0.19–0.56, all p < 0.01), and significant linear correlations were also observed between soil-available Fe and Fe in plant and roots. Aboveground plant Mn was significantly correlated with soil-available Mn, while Co and Mo in roots were also significantly correlated with soil-available Co and Mo. These results indicate that soil micronutrient supply capacity may decrease due to a decrease in total micronutrient contents after long-term N addition and mowing. They also suggest that different magnitude responses of soil micronutrients in plants (i.e., litters, roots) and soil should be considered when comprehensively examining nutrient cycling in grassland ecosystems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Ecology and Nutrient Cycling in Grasslands)
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