Consistent timelines, divergent end points: plant community change in multiple tallgrass nitrogen addition experiments.

ABSTRACT: Human activities have increased nitrogen (N) bioavailability broadly, resulting in increased plant productivity and decreased plant species richness globally. However, the determinants of the rates of change and the ultimate plant community composition resulting from N additions remain unclear. Here we synthesize data from six long-term N addition experiments in a tallgrass prairie ecosystem to (1) determine whether plant compositional change with N additions occurs gradually or is an abrupt response, (2) identify short-term (i.e., pulse) environmental drivers that may cause compositional changes, and (3) map the end points of plant communities following a decade or more of N addition. We find that most plant community change occurred gradually over the first several years of chronic N add

SUBMITTER: Komatsu KJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12568805 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature