Direct and plant community mediated effects of management intensity on annual nutrient leaching risk in temperate grasslands

Apostolakis, Antonios; Schöning, Ingo; Klaus, Valentin H.; Michalzik, Beate; Bischoff, Wolf-Anno; Boeddinghaus, Runa S.; Bolliger, Ralph; Fischer, Markus; Hölzel, Norbert; Kandeler, Ellen; Kleinebecker, Till; Manning, Peter; Marhan, Sven; Neyret, Margot; Oelmann, Yvonne; Prati, Daniel; van Kleunen, Mark; Schwarz, Andreas; Schurig, Elisabeth and Schrumpf, Marion (2022). Direct and plant community mediated effects of management intensity on annual nutrient leaching risk in temperate grasslands. Nutrient cycling in agroecosystems, 123(3), pp. 83-104. Springer 10.1007/s10705-022-10209-1

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Grassland management intensity influences nutrient cycling both directly, by changing nutrient inputs and outputs from the ecosystem, and indirectly, by altering the nutrient content, and the diversity and functional composition of plant and microbial communities. However, the relative importance of these direct and indirect processes for the leaching of multiple nutrients is poorly studied. We measured the annual leaching of nitrate, ammonium, phosphate and sulphate at a depth of 10 cm in 150 temperate managed grasslands using a resin method. Using Structural Equation Modeling, we distinguished between various direct and indirect effects of management intensity (i.e. grazing and fertilization) on nutrient leaching. We found that management intensity was positively associated with nitrate, ammonium and phosphate leaching risk both directly (i.e. via increased nutrient inputs) and indirectly, by changing the stoichiometry of soils, plants and microbes. In contrast, sulphate leaching risk was negatively associated with management intensity, presumably due to increased outputs with mowing and grazing. In addition, management intensification shifted plant communities towards an exploitative functional composition (characterized by high tissue turnover rates) and, thus, further promoted the leaching risk of inorganic nitrogen. Plant species richness was associated with lower inorganic nitrogen leaching risk, but most of its effects were mediated by stoichiometry and plant community functional traits. Maintaining and restoring diverse plant communities may therefore mitigate the increased leaching risk that management intensity imposes upon grasslands.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Original Article)

Division/Institute:

08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Plant Sciences (IPS) > Plant Ecology
08 Faculty of Science > Department of Biology > Institute of Plant Sciences (IPS)

UniBE Contributor:

Bolliger, Ralph Frédéric, Fischer, Markus, Prati, Daniel

Subjects:

500 Science > 580 Plants (Botany)

ISSN:

1385-1314

Publisher:

Springer

Language:

English

Submitter:

Peter Alfred von Ballmoos-Haas

Date Deposited:

17 Jun 2022 08:01

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 16:20

Publisher DOI:

10.1007/s10705-022-10209-1

Uncontrolled Keywords:

Annual nutrient leaching; Inorganic nitrogen; Phosphate; Sulphate; Temperate grasslands; Grassland management

BORIS DOI:

10.48350/170723

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/170723

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