Precipitation overrides warming in mediating soil nitrogen pools in an alpine grassland ecosystem on the Tibetan Plateau.

ABSTRACT: Soils in the alpine grassland store a large amount of nitrogen (N) due to slow decomposition. However, the decomposition could be affected by climate change, which has profound impacts on soil N cycling. We investigated the changes of soil total N and five labile N stocks in the topsoil, the subsoil and the entire soil profile in response to three years of experimental warming and altered precipitation in a Tibetan alpine grassland. We found that warming significantly increased soil nitrate N stock and decreased microbial biomass N (MBN) stock. Increased precipitation reduced nitrate N, dissolved organic N and amino acid N stocks, but increased MBN stock in the topsoil. No change in soil total N was detected under warming and altered precipitation regimes. Redundancy analysis further revea

SUBMITTER: Lin L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4985624 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature