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Plant and Soil N Response of Southern Californian Semi-arid Shrublands After 1 Year of Experimental N Deposition

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Abstract

Large inputs of atmospheric N from dry deposition accumulate on vegetation and soil surfaces of southern Californian chaparral and coastal sage scrub (CSS) ecosystems during the late-summer and early-fall and become available as a pulse following winter rainfall; however, the fate of this dry season atmospheric N addition is unknown. To assess the potential for dry season atmospheric N inputs to be incorporated into soil and/or vegetation N pools, an in situ N addition experiment was initiated in a post-fire chaparral and a mature CSS stand where 10 × 10 m plots were exposed to either ambient N deposition (control) or ambient +50 kg N ha−1 (added N) added as NH4NO3 during a single application in October 2003. After 1 year of N addition, plots exposed to added N had significantly higher accumulation of extractable inorganic N (NH4−N + NO3−N) on ion exchange resins deployed in the 0–10 cm mineral soil layer and higher soil extractable N in the subsurface (30–40 cm) mineral soil than plots exposed to ambient N. Chaparral and CSS shrubs exposed to added N also exhibited a significant increase in tissue N concentration and a decline in the tissue C:N ratio, and added N significantly altered the shrub tissue δ 15N natural abundance. Leaching of inorganic N to 1 m below the soil surface was on average 2–3 times higher in the added N plots, but large within treatment variability cause these differences to be statistically insignificant. Although a large fraction of the added N could not be accounted for in the shrub and soil N pools investigated, these observations suggest that dry season N inputs can significantly and rapidly alter N availability and shrub tissue chemistry in Mediterranean-type chaparral and CSS shrublands of southern California.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported in part by the NSF-CAREER (DEB-0133259) and NIH-NIGMS-SCORE (S06 GM 59833) programs. The authors thank Robert Mustard and David Faber for elemental analysis, R. Fagan of the Kansas State University-Stable Isotope Mass Spectrometry Laboratory (SIMSL) for conducting the stable isotope analyses, and the over 25 graduate and undergraduate student assistants whose effort made this research possible. Permission to use the SOFS and SMER research sites was graciously granted by the SDSU Field Station Programs. Comments provided by S. Hastings (SDSU) and E. Allen (UCR) of earlier versions of this manuscript are gratefully appreciated.

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  1. Department of Biological Sciences, California State University, San Marcos, California, 92096, USA

    George L. Vourlitis, Sarah Pasquini & Gypsi Zorba

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  1. George L. Vourlitis
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Correspondence to George L. Vourlitis.

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Vourlitis, G.L., Pasquini, S. & Zorba, G. Plant and Soil N Response of Southern Californian Semi-arid Shrublands After 1 Year of Experimental N Deposition. Ecosystems 10, 263–279 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-007-9030-2

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