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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Plant Sci.
Sec. Plant Nutrition
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpls.2024.1480517

Different nitrogen uptake patterns of plant and soil microorganisms in the forest-grassland transition zone on the Loess Plateau

Provisionally accepted
Lina Wang Lina Wang 1Xu Deng Xu Deng 1Ying Zhou Ying Zhou 2Xueqi Geng Xueqi Geng 2Zeling Zhang Zeling Zhang 2Yakun Tang Yakun Tang 2*
  • 1 College of Forestry, Northwest A and F University, Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, China
  • 2 State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, Shaanxi Province, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    It is unclear whether plants and microorganisms achieve niche complementarity by taking up different inorganic nitrogen (N) forms to alleviate N competition, particularly in N-limited regions. This paper conducted a 15-day 15 N tracer study ( 15 NH4NO3 or 15 NH4NO3) in situ to quantitatively calculate the uptake rates of plants and microorganisms in four stands (pure Hippophae rhamnoides L, pure Pinus tabuliformis Carrière, mixed H. rhamnoides-P. tabuliformis, and Artemisia gmelinii Weber ex Stechm grassland) in the forest-grassland transition zone on the Loess Plateau during the growing season. Among them, H. rhamnoides and P. tabuliformis can associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal and ectomycorrhizal, respectively. The results indicated that H. rhamnoides in the pure stand and A. gmelinii preferred to take up 15 NO3 -, whereas P. tabuliformis in the pure stand preferred 15 NH4 + . Compared to pure stands, mixed afforestation decreased the NH4 + and NO3 -uptake rate of H. rhamnoides by 87% and 70%, respectively, but did not alter the N preference of plants. Plants and microorganisms differed in their N preferences in the pure stand, whereas this was not the case in the mixed stand. The proportional similarity index between H. rhamnoides and P. tabuliformis (0.90±0.01) was higher than that between plants and microorganisms in forest stands, except for P. tabuliformis and microorganisms in the mixed stand (0.90 ± 0.02). Those results indicated that niche complementarity by preferring different N forms can alleviate N competition. This study helped to gain a deeper understanding of the plasticity of N uptake patterns by plants and microorganisms in the forest-grassland transition zone, and provides theoretical support for vegetation restoration during the implementation of the Grain for Green program on the Loess Plateau.

    Keywords: Forest-grassland transition zone, microorganisms, Niche complementarity, 15 N tracer, nitrogen uptake, Plants

    Received: 14 Aug 2024; Accepted: 26 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Wang, Deng, Zhou, Geng, Zhang and Tang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Yakun Tang, State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang, 712100, Shaanxi Province, China

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