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Feedback of grazing on gross rates of N mineralization and inorganic N partitioning in steppe soils of Inner Mongolia

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Abstract

Plant-microbe interactions are crucial regulators of belowground nitrogen cycling in terrestrial ecosystems. However, such interactions have mostly been excluded from experimental setups for the investigation of gross inorganic N fluxes and N partitioning to plants and microorganisms. Ungulate grazing is likely to feed back on soil N fluxes, and hence it is of special importance to simultaneously investigate grazing effects on both plant and microbial N fluxes in intact plant-soil systems, where plant-microbe interactions persist during the experimental incubation. Based on the homogenous 15NH +4 labelling of intact plant-soil monoliths we investigated how various stocking rates (0, 2.35, 4.8 and 7.85 sheep ha−1 grazing season−1) in steppe of Inner Mongolia feedback on gross rates of N mineralization and short-term inorganic N partitioning between plant, microbial and soil N pools. Our results showed that the effect of grazing on gross N mineralization was non-uniform. At low stocking rate gross N mineralization tended to decrease but increased with higher grazing pressure. Hence, there was no significant correlation between stocking rate and gross N mineralization across the investigated grazing intensities. Grazing decreased 15N recovery both in plant and microbial N pools but strongly promoted NO −3 accumulation in the soil and thus negatively affected potential ecosystem N retention. This appeared to be closely related to the grazing-induced decline in easily degradable soil C availability at increasing stocking rate.

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Acknowledgements

Funding of this work by the German Research Foundation/Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) within the framework of the MAGIM research group and the joint laboratory of IMK-IFU and IAP-CAS as funded by the Helmholtz Society is gratefully acknowledged. We thank Katrin Müller, Philipp Schönbach, Hongwei Wan and Li-Jin Lin for maintaining the grazing experiment. Furthermore we wish to thank Rudi Meyer, Bärbel Biegler and Yuandi Zhu for technical support and Shenghui Han for logistic support

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research (IMK-IFU), Kreuzeckbahnstrasse 19, 82357, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

    Honghui Wu, Michael Dannenmann, Benjamin Wolf, Zhisheng Yao, Xing Wu, Nicolas Brüggemann & Klaus Butterbach-Bahl

  2. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiangshan, Beijing, 100093, China

    Honghui Wu & Xingguo Han

  3. Institute of Plant Nutrition and Soil Science, Christian-Albrechts-University Kiel, Hermann-Rodewald-Str.2, 24118, Kiel, Germany

    Nicole Fanselow & Klaus Dittert

  4. Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100029, China

    Zhisheng Yao & Xunhua Zheng

  5. State Key Joint Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100874, China

    Xing Wu

  6. Institute of Forest Botany and Tree Physiology, Chair of Tree Physiology, University of Freiburg, Georges-Koehler-Allee 53/54, 79110, Freiburg, Germany

    Michael Dannenmann

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  1. Honghui Wu
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  2. Michael Dannenmann
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  11. Klaus Butterbach-Bahl
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Correspondence to Michael Dannenmann.

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Wu, H., Dannenmann, M., Fanselow, N. et al. Feedback of grazing on gross rates of N mineralization and inorganic N partitioning in steppe soils of Inner Mongolia. Plant Soil 340, 127–139 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-010-0575-z

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