Nutrient availability controls the impact of mammalian herbivores on soil carbon and nitrogen pools in grasslands.

ABSTRACT: Grasslands are subject to considerable alteration due to human activities globally, including widespread changes in populations and composition of large mammalian herbivores and elevated supply of nutrients. Grassland soils remain important reservoirs of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N). Herbivores may affect both C and N pools and these changes likely interact with increases in soil nutrient availability. Given the scale of grassland soil fluxes, such changes can have striking consequences for atmospheric C concentrations and the climate. Here, we use the Nutrient Network experiment to examine the responses of soil C and N pools to mammalian herbivore exclusion across 22 grasslands, under ambient and elevated nutrient availabilities (fertilized with NPK + micronutrients). We show that the impa

SUBMITTER: Sitters J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7155038 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature