Wyniki wyszukiwania - BazTech

Ograniczanie wyników

2 Polish Journal of Ecology

Znaleziono wyników: 2

Liczba wyników na stronie

Wyniki wyszukiwania

Wyszukiwano:
w słowach kluczowych: old field

Sortuj według:

Ogranicz wyniki do:

Morphological responses of six plant species to patchy habitat with different nitrogen concentrations using in-growth core methods

Du F., Sui Y., Xu X., Zhang X., Hao W., Shao M., Hu L., Shan L.

Polish Journal of Ecology

2013

Vol. 61, nr 2

257--269

Soil nutrient pattern can be a functional tool for grassland restoration. In order to promote the growth of a specific or group of expected plant species, it is necessary to measure the responses of different species to nutrient – rich patches and detect the differences among them. In this article, we measured aboveground biomass and morphological traits of six species as dry weight, length, surface area, specific root length and diameter of fine roots in response to nitrogen addition patches using ingrowth core method. The six species are Artemisia scoparia, Stipa bungeana, Artemisia sacrorum, Artemisia giraldii, Lespedeza dahurica and Astragalus melilotoides. All are the dominant species in different stages of secondary succession of loess hilly region, China. Twelve individuals of each species were selected to install ingrowth cores. Six of the individuals were used as treatment group, they were treated to install with four cores of no (addition’s control), low, medium and high levels of nitrogen additions. Another six of them were used as species’ control group, the four installed cores around them had no nitrogen addition. The results showed that: 1) After 105 days in situ, for all the six species, summed dry weight, length and surface area measured in the four cores of the treatment group were significantly greater than the corresponding values in species’ control group. In aboveground biomass, however, only A. scoparia in the treatment group had significantly outweighed that in the species’ control group. 2) Irrespective of nitrogen additions levels, significant differences of length, diameter and surface area existed among the six species, which implied that species had their intrinsic species specific morphological traits. 3) In dry weight, length and surface area, the responses of all the six species to nitrogen addition levels were positive, significantly more roots were grew into the cores with higher nitrogen additions; while in specific root length, the responses were negative. 4) Perhaps the six species had a special nitrogen requirement, as interaction effects of species and addition levels in surface area were found significant. 5) The foraging precision of the six species to nutrient-rich patches had positive but insignificant correlation with root system size; there existed a significant positive correlation between the precision and the sensitivity to the designed patchy habiats. 6) Among the six species, A. scoparia, A. sacrorum and S. bungeana have higher sensitivity and precision than L. dahurica and A. melilotoides in terms of foraging the nitrogen addition cores or patches. It seems that fast growing species that dominate in early successional stage, like A. scoparia and S. bungeana in our case, obtained more benefits from nutrient patchy habitat. We advised that, in infertile lands, fertiliser be applied in a patchy way to accelerate the restoration of old fields as early as possible once they were abandoned.

Responses of old-field vegetation to spatially homogenous or heterogenous fertilisation: implications for resources utilization and restoration

Du F., Xu X., Zhang X., Shao M., Hu L., Shan L.

Polish Journal of Ecology

2012

Vol. 60, nr 1

133-144

A vailability and heterogeneity of resources have a strong influence on community biomass and diversity, which provided a valuable opportunity to evaluate the responses of vegetation on fertilization, to test whether fertilisation can accelerate vegetation restoration in infertile lands. In loess hilly region of China, most newly abandoned infertile lands often undergo heavy soil erosion. It is urgent to promote the restoration of these types of lands. As availability and heterogeneity of soil nutrients have a strong influence on plant community, we conducted a fertilisation experiment with three-factor treatments, to test whether fertilisation can promote the biomass and species richness of an Artemisia scoparia-dominated old field community. The three factors were: spatial patterns (homogeneity and heterogeneity), levels (low, medium and high), and scales (three levels with small, intermediate, and large patches) of fertiliser application. Above- and below-ground biomass and species richness were recorded. The responses of the plant community to the three factors were evaluated and compared with those of the control (no fertilisation). The results show that: (1) The application of fertiliser in either homogeneous or heterogeneous pattern significantly increased the above-ground and below-ground biomass of the plant community as compared with the control. (2) In heterogeneous conditions, the above-ground biomass in nutrient-rich patches was significantly greater than the expected value of 50%. Under intermediate and large scales of the low level and all scales of the medium and high levels, the proportion of 0.15 cm below-ground biomass was also significantly greater than 50%. (3) Both homogeneous and heterogeneous fertilisation greatly increased community richness as compared to the control. Fertilisation, particularly heterogeneous fertilisation, can effectively increase community biomass and diversity. Under patchy habitat, it seems that the responses of vegetation to heterogeneous fertilisation are related to the patches scale and the contrast among patches, nutrient usage efficiency, edge effects on plant and soil, and plant competition are responsible for the responses. The results also suggest that heterogeneous fertilisation should be applied widely in infertile old fields to accelerate secondary succession.