Journal ArticleDOI
Boreal forest plants take up organic nitrogen
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The data indicate that organic nitrogen is important for these different plants, even when they are competing with each other and with non-symbiotic microorganisms, which has major implications for the understanding of the effects of nitrogen deposition, global warming and intensified forestry.Abstract:
Plant growth in the boreal forest, the largest terrestrial biome, is generally limited by the availability of nitrogen. The presumed cause of this limitation is slow mineralization of soil organic nitrogen1,2. Here we demonstrate, to our knowledge for the first time, the uptake of organic nitrogen in the field by the trees Pinus sylvestris and Picea abies, the dwarf shrub Vaccinium myrtillus and the grass Deschampsia flexuosa. These results show that these plants, irrespective of their different types of root–fungal associations (mycorrhiza), bypass nitrogen mineralization. A trace of the amino acid glycine, labelled with the stable isotopes 13C and 15N, was injected into the organic (mor) layer of an old successional boreal coniferous forest. Ratios of 13C:15N in the roots showed that at least 91, 64 and 42% of the nitrogen from the absorbed glycine was taken up in intact glycine by the dwarf shrub, the grass and the trees, respectively. Rates of glycine uptake were similar to those of 15N-ammonium. Our data indicate that organic nitrogen is important for these different plants, even when they are competing with each other and with non-symbiotic microorganisms. This has major implications for our understanding of the effects of nitrogen deposition, global warming and intensified forestry.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
The unseen majority: Soil microbes as drivers of plant diversity and productivity in terrestrial ecosystems
TL;DR: Overall, this review shows that soil microbes must be considered as important drivers of plant diversity and productivity in terrestrial ecosystems.
Book ChapterDOI
The Mineral Nutrition of Wild Plants Revisited: A Re-evaluation of Processes and Patterns
Rien Aerts,F. S. Chapin +1 more
TL;DR: The issues of nutrient-limited plant growth and nutrient uptake, with special emphasis on the importance of the uptake of nutrients in organic form—both by mycorrhizal and by non-mycorrhIZal plants—and the influence of symbiotic nitrogen fixation are treated.
Journal ArticleDOI
Nitrogen mineralization: challenges of a changing paradigm
TL;DR: A complete new conceptual model of the soil N cycle needs to incorporate recent research on plant–microbe competition and microsite processes to explain the dynamics of N across the wide range of N availability found in terrestrial ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Stable Isotopes in Plant Ecology
TL;DR: How isotope measurements associated with the critical plant resources carbon, water, and nitrogen have helped deepen the understanding of plant-resource acquisition, plant interactions with other organisms, and the role of plants in ecosystem studies is reviewed.
Journal ArticleDOI
Acquisition of phosphorus and nitrogen in the rhizosphere and plant growth promotion by microorganisms
Alan Richardson,José Miguel Barea,Ann McNeill,Claire Prigent-Combaret,Claire Prigent-Combaret +4 more
TL;DR: Features of the rhizosphere that are important for nutrient acquisition from soil are reviewed, with specific emphasis on the characteristics of roots that influence the availability and uptake of phosphorus and nitrogen.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Chloroform fumigation and the release of soil nitrogen: A rapid direct extraction method to measure microbial biomass nitrogen in soil
TL;DR: In this paper, a direct extraction method for measuring soil microbial biomass nitrogen (biomass N) is described, which is based on CHC13 fumigation, followed by immediate extraction with 0.5 M K2SO4 and measurement of total N released by CHC 13 in the soil extracts.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Mineral Nutrition of Wild Plants
TL;DR: The nature of crop responses to nutrient stress is reviewed and compares these responses to those of species that have evolved under more natural conditions, particularly in low-nutrient envi ronments.
Journal ArticleDOI
Nitrogen limitation on land and in the sea: How can it occur?
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine both how the biogeochemistry of the nitrogen cycle could cause limitation to develop, and how nitrogen limitation could persist as a consequence of processes that prevent or reduce nitrogen fixation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Tansley Review No. 95 15N natural abundance in soil-plant systems
TL;DR: Measurements of δ15 N might offer the advantage of giving insights into the N cycle without disturbing the system by adding 15 N tracer, as well as giving information on N source effects, which can give insights into N cycle rates.
Journal ArticleDOI
Mycorrhizas in ecosystems
TL;DR: It is concluded that knowledge of the full range of functions of each mycorrhizal type is essential for an understanding of the distribution and dynamics of the ecosystem in which it predominates.