Abstract
Drought can increase nitrogen (N) loss due to enhanced asynchronicity between N release through mineralization and plant N uptake. Organic amendments of N could potentially mitigate this loss where the N is more slowly released and made available at times when plants need it. Drought (ambient vs. reduced precipitation implemented with rainout shelters) and fertilizer addition (compost vs. mineral fertilizer) were used to examine the changes in mineralization, plant uptake, and loss of N during dry and wet periods in a grassland of Australia. Both gross N mineralization (GNM) and plant N uptake were high in wet summers and low in dry summers, while in the winter the relatively high GNM was not matched with similarly high plant N uptake. Drought conditions combined with mineral fertilizer addition resulted in the highest plant δ15N values, reflecting a more open N cycle (high N loss). In contrast, under drought conditions, compost released N more slowly and showed greater synchronicity with plant N demand. Because drought has become increasingly more intense and frequent, compost addition to grasslands could be a beneficial management strategy to improve soil health and increase plant productivity, and most importantly to reduce N loss compared to mineral fertilizers.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data Availability Statement
Data are available at https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.p2ngf1vmh.
References
Ai C, Liang G, Sun J, Wang X, Zhou W. 2012. Responses of extracellular enzyme activities and microbial community in both the rhizosphere and bulk soil to long-term fertilization practices in a fluvo-aquic soil. Geoderma 173:330–8.
Aranibar JN, Otter L, Macko SA, Feral CJW, Epstein HE, Dowty PR, Eckardt F, Shugart HH, Swap RJ. 2004. Nitrogen cycling in the soil–plant system along a precipitation gradient in the Kalahari sands. Glob Change Biol 10(3):359–73.
Aranibar JN, Anderson IC, Epstein HE, Feral CJW, Swap RJ, Ramontsho J, Macko SA. 2008. Nitrogen isotope composition of soils, C3 and C4 plants along land use gradients in southern Africa. J Arid Environ 72(4):326–37.
Austin AT. 2011. Has water limited our imagination for aridland biogeochemistry? Trends Ecol Evol 26(5):229–35.
Austin AT, Vitousek PM. 1998. Nutrient dynamics on a precipitation gradient in Hawai’i. Oecologia 113(4):519–29.
Austin AT, Yahdjian L, Stark JM, Belnap J, Porporato A, Norton U, Ravetta DA, Schaeffer SM. 2004. Water pulses and biogeochemical cycles in arid and semiarid ecosystems. Oecologia 141(2):221–35.
Berg B, Matzner E. 1997. Effect of N deposition on decomposition of plant litter and soil organic matter in forest systems. Environ Rev 5(1):1–25.
Birch HF. 1958. The effect of soil drying on humus decomposition and nitrogen availability. Plant Soil 10(1):9–31.
Borken W, Matzner E. 2009. Reappraisal of drying and wetting effects on C and N mineralization and fluxes in soils. Glob Change Biol 15(4):808–24.
Bureau of Meteorology. 2019. http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_067108.shtml.
Canarini A, Carrillo Y, Mariotte P, Ingram L, Dijkstra FA. 2016. Soil microbial community resistance to drought and links to C stabilization in an Australian grassland. Soil Biol Biochem 103:171–80.
Collins SL, Sinsabaugh RL, Crenshaw C, Green L, Porras-Alfaro A, Stursova M, Zeglin LH. 2008. Pulse dynamics and microbial processes in aridland ecosystems. J Ecol 96(3):413–20.
Craine JM, Elmore AJ, Aidar MPM, Bustamante M, Dawson TE, Hobbie EA, Kahmen A, Mack MC, McLauchlan KK, Michelsen A, Nardoto GB, Pardo LH, Peñuelas J, Reich PB, Schuur EAG, Stock WD, Templer PH, Virginia RA, Welker JM, Wright IJ. 2009. Global patterns of foliar nitrogen isotopes and their relationships with climate, mycorrhizal fungi, foliar nutrient concentrations, and nitrogen availability. New Phytol 183(4):980–92.
Craine JM, Brookshire ENJ, Cramer MD, Hasselquist NJ, Koba K, Marin-Spiotta E, Wang L. 2015. Ecological interpretations of nitrogen isotope ratios of terrestrial plants and soils. Plant Soil 396(1–2):1–26.
Fierer N, Schimel JP. 2002. Effects of drying–rewetting frequency on soil carbon and nitrogen transformations. Soil Biol Biochem 34(6):777–87.
Handmer J, Honda Y, Kundzewicz ZW, Arnell N, Benito G, Hatfield J, Mohamed IF, Peduzzi P, Wu S, Sherstyukov B, Takahashi K, Yan Z. 2012. Changes in impacts of climate extremes: human systems and ecosystems. In: Field CB, Barros V, Stocker TF, Qin D, Dokken DJ, Ebi KL, Mastrandrea MD, Mach KJ, Plattner GK, Allen SK, Tignor M, Midgley PM, Eds. Managing the risks of extreme events and disasters to advance climate change adaptation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p 231–90.
Hart SC, Stark JM, Davidson EA, Firestone MK. 1994. Nitrogen mineralization, immobilization, and nitrification. In: Bottomley PS, Angle JS, Weaver RW, Eds. Methods of soil analysis: part 2-microbiological and biochemical properties. Wisconsin: Soil Science Society of America. p 985–1018.
Hartmann AA, Niklaus PA. 2012. Effects of simulated drought and nitrogen fertilizer on plant productivity and nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions of two pastures. Plant Soil 361(1–2):411–26.
Hartmann AA, Barnard RL, Marhan S, Niklaus PA. 2013. Effects of drought and N-fertilization on N cycling in two grassland soils. Oecologia 171(3):705–17.
Hobbie EA, Högberg P. 2012. Nitrogen isotopes link mycorrhizal fungi and plants to nitrogen dynamics. New Phytol 196(2):367–82.
Högberg P, Johannisson C, Yarwood S, Callesen I, Näsholm T, Myrold DD, Högberg MN. 2011. Recovery of ectomycorrhiza after ‘nitrogen saturation’ of a conifer forest. New Phytol 189(2):515–25.
Homyak PM, Allison SD, Huxman TE, Goulden ML, Treseder KK. 2017. Effects of drought manipulation on soil nitrogen cycling: a meta-analysis. J Geophys Res Biogeosci 122(12):3260–72.
Huang J, Yu H, Guan X, Wang G, Guo R. 2016. Accelerated dryland expansion under climate change. Nat Clim Change 6(2):166–71.
Huxman TE, Snyder KA, Tissue D, Leffler AJ, Ogle K, Pockman WT, Sandquist DR, Potts DL, Schwinning S. 2004. Precipitation pulses and carbon fluxes in semiarid and arid ecosystems. Oecologia 141(2):254–68.
Isbell R. 2016. The Australian soil classification. 2nd edn. Australia, VIC: CSIRO publishing.
Jaeger CHIII, Monson RK, Fisk MC, Schmidt SK. 1999. Seasonal partitioning of nitrogen by plants and soil microorganisms in an alpine ecosystem. Ecology 80(6):1883–91.
Jones SK, Rees RM, Skiba UM, Ball BC. 2007. Influence of organic and mineral N fertiliser on N2O fluxes from a temperate grassland. Agric Ecosyst Environ 121(1–2):74–83.
Kirkham DON, Bartholomew WV. 1954. Equations for following nutrient transformations in soil, utilizing tracer data. Soil Sci Soc Am J 18(1):33–4.
Kleinebecker T, Hölzel N, Prati D, Schmitt B, Fischer M, Klaus VH. 2014. Evidence from the real world: 15N natural abundances reveal enhanced nitrogen use at high plant diversity in central European grasslands. J Ecol 102(2):456–65.
Lambers H, Chapin FSIII, Pons TL. 2008. Plant physiological ecology. 2nd edn. New York: Springer.
Lü X-T, Dijkstra FA, Kong D-L, Wang Z-W, Han X-G. 2014. Plant nitrogen uptake drives responses of productivity to nitrogen and water addition in a grassland. Sci Rep 4:4817.
Mariotte P, Canarini A, Dijkstra FA. 2017. Stoichiometric N: P flexibility and mycorrhizal symbiosis favour plant resistance against drought. J Ecol 105(4):958–67.
Moore JC, McCann K, Setälä H, De Ruiter PC. 2003. Top-down is bottom-up: does predation in the rhizosphere regulate aboveground dynamics? Ecology 84(4):846–57.
Reichmann LG, Sala OE, Peters DPC. 2013. Water controls on nitrogen transformations and stocks in an arid ecosystem. Ecosphere 4(1):1–17.
Robinson D. 2001. δ15N as an integrator of the nitrogen cycle. Trends Ecol Evol 16(3):153–62.
Rustad L, Campbell J, Marion G, Norby R, Mitchell M, Hartley A, Cornelissen J, Gurevitch J. 2001. A meta-analysis of the response of soil respiration, net nitrogen mineralization, and aboveground plant growth to experimental ecosystem warming. Oecologia 126(4):543–62.
Sanaullah M, Rumpel C, Charrier X, Chabbi A. 2012. How does drought stress influence the decomposition of plant litter with contrasting quality in a grassland ecosystem? Plant Soil 352(1–2):277–88.
Schimel JP. 2018. Life in dry soils: effects of drought on soil microbial communities and processes. Annu Rev Ecol Evol Syst 49:409–32.
Schimel JP, Bennett J. 2004. Nitrogen mineralization: challenges of a changing paradigm. Ecology 85(3):591–602.
Schimel J, Balser TC, Wallenstein M. 2007. Microbial stress-response physiology and its implications for ecosystem function. Ecology 88(6):1386–94.
Schwinning S, Sala OE. 2004. Hierarchy of responses to resource pulses in arid and semiarid ecosystems. Oecologia 141(2):211–20.
Stark JM, Hart SC. 1996. Diffusion technique for preparing salt solutions, Kjeldahl digests, and persulfate digests for nitrogen-15 analysis. Soil Sci Soc Am J 60(6):1846–55.
Sullivan BW, Selmants PC, Hart SC. 2012. New evidence that high potential nitrification rates occur in soils during dry seasons: are microbial communities metabolically active during dry seasons? Soil Biol Biochem 53:28–31.
Turner MM, Henry HAL. 2010. Net nitrogen mineralization and leaching in response to warming and nitrogen deposition in a temperate old field: the importance of winter temperature. Oecologia 162(1):227–36.
Wang X, Jia Z, Liang L, Yang B, Ding R, Nie J, Wang J. 2016. Impacts of manure application on soil environment, rainfall use efficiency and crop biomass under dryland farming. Sci Rep 6:20994.
Weltzin JF, Loik ME, Schwinning S, Williams DG, Fay PA, Haddad BM, Harte J, Huxman TE, Knapp AK, Lin G, Pockman WT, Shaw RM, Small EE, Smith MD, Smith SD, Tissue DT, Zak JC. 2003. Assessing the response of terrestrial ecosystems to potential changes in precipitation. Bioscience 53(10):941–52.
Xiang SR, Doyle A, Holden PA, Schimel JP. 2008. Drying and rewetting effects on C and N mineralization and microbial activity in surface and subsurface California grassland soils. Soil Biol Biochem 40(9):2281–9.
Yahdjian L, Sala OE. 2002. A rainout shelter design for intercepting different amounts of rainfall. Oecologia 133(2):95–101.
Zhou H, Peng X, Perfect E, Xiao T, Peng G. 2013. Effects of organic and inorganic fertilization on soil aggregation in an Ultisol as characterized by synchrotron based X-ray micro-computed tomography. Geoderma 195:23–30.
Acknowledgements
We thank Claudia Keitel, The University of Sydney for isotope analyses. This research was supported by the Australian Research Council (FT100100779), and scholarships to MRU funded by Alexander Hugh Thurburn, and Francis Henry Loxton Bequests.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ullah, M.R., Corneo, P.E. & Dijkstra, F.A. Inter-seasonal Nitrogen Loss with Drought Depends on Fertilizer Management in a Seminatural Australian Grassland. Ecosystems 23, 1281–1293 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-019-00469-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-019-00469-4