Interactions between tall oatgrass invasion and soil nitrogen cycling

Details

• Journal Title:
  Oecologia
• Personal Author:
  Hinckley, Eve-Lyn S. ; Miller, Hannah R. ; Lezberg, Ann ; Anacker, Brian
• NOAA Program & Office:
  NESDIS (National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service) ; NCEI (National Centers for Environmental Information)
• Description:
  Increases in nitrogen (N) inputs to the biosphere can exacerbate the introduction and spread of invasive non-native plant species. Often, with elevated soil N levels, invasive plants establish and further enrich soil N pools, changing overall ecosystem function. This study examined the relationship between soil N cycling and an increasingly prevalent, invasive plant species, tall oatgrass (Arrhenatherum elatius subsp. elatius), in foothills ecosystems between the Colorado Rocky Mountains and the Denver-Boulder Metropolitan area—similar to many Western US grasslands and woodlands. It focused on investigating differences in soil N transformations, inorganic N pools, and vegetation characteristics across invaded and uninvaded plots at three sites in two seasons (summer and autumn). There was a statistically significant effect of invasion on rates of net N mineralization, but it was dependent on site and season (p = 0.046). Site had a statistically significant effect on soil moisture and aboveground biomass C:N (p < 0.04). The interactions of invasion x site were statistically significant for ammonium pools (p < 0.03). These findings suggest that A. elatius invasion can be associated with accelerated N cycling, but that the nature of the relationship differs by location and season in the foothills. More broadly, this study contributes to determining how the N cycle is shifting in grassland ecosystems subject to increasing pressures from anthropogenic change.
• Keywords:
  Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
• Source:
  Oecologia, 199(2), 419-426
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1007/s00442-022-05192-x
• ISSN:
  0029-8549 ; 1432-1939
• Format:
  PDF
• Publisher:
  Springer Science and Business Media LLC
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• License:
  https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Submitted
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:3534f9024018687d55c69a29e013610bb614eec09701ceaf3f84ceff6d668dc6
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/51926/noaa_51926_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 548.01 KB ]