Open Access
Decoupling of soil nutrient cycles as a function of
Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo,Fernando T. Maestre,Antonio Gallardo,Matthew A. Bowker,Matthew D. Wallenstein,José L. Quero,Victoria Ochoa,Beatriz Gozalo,Miguel García-Gómez,Santiago Soliveres,Pablo García-Palacios,Miguel Berdugo,Enrique Valencia,Cristina Escolar,Tulio Arredondo,Claudia Barraza-Zepeda,Donaldo Bran,José A. Carreira,Mohamed Chaieb,Abel A. Conceiça˜o,Mchich Derak,David J. Eldridge,Adrián Escudero,Carlos I. Espinosa,Juan José Gaitán,M. Gabriel Gatica,Susana Gómez-González,Elizabeth Guzman,Julio R. Gutiérrez,Adriana Florentino,E.N. Hepper,Rosa M. Hernández,Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald,Mohammad Jankju,Jushan Liu,Rebecca L. Mau,Maria N. Miriti,Jorge Monerris,Kamal Naseri,Zouhaier Noumi,Vicente Polo,Aníbal Prina,Eduardo Pucheta,Elizabeth Ramírez,David A. Ramırez Collantes,R. L. Romão,Matthew Tighe,Duilio Torres,Cristian Torres-Díaz,Eugene D. Ungar,James Val,Wanyoike Wamiti,Deli Wang,Eli Zaady +53 more
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TLDR
In this paper, the authors evaluate how aridity affects the balance between carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) in soils collected from 224 dryland sites from all continents except Antarctica and find a negative effect of aridity on the concentration of soil organic C and total N, but a positive effect on inorganic P.Abstract:
The biogeochemical cycles of carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are interlinked by primary production, respiration and decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems. It has been suggested that the C, N and P cycles could become uncoupled under rapid climate change because of the different degrees of control exerted on the supply of these elements by biological and geochemical processes. Climatic controls on biogeochemical cycles are particularly relevant in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid ecosystems (drylands) because their biological activity is mainly driven by water availability. The increase in aridity predicted for the twenty-first century in many drylands worldwide may therefore threaten the balance between these cycles, differentially affecting the availability of essential nutrients. Here we evaluate how aridity affects the balance between C, N and P in soils collected from 224 dryland sites from all continents except Antarctica. We find a negative effect of aridity on the concentration of soil organic C and total N, but a positive effect on the concentration of inorganic P. Aridity is negatively related to plant cover, which may favour the dominance of physical processes such as rock weathering, a major source of P to ecosystems, over biological processes that provide more C and N, such as litter decomposition. Our findings suggest that any predicted increase in aridity with climate change will probably reduce the concentrations of N and C in global drylands, but increase that of P. These changes would uncouple the C, N and P cycles in drylands and could negatively affect the provision of key services provided by these ecosystems.read more
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DissertationDOI
Exploring the possibilities of parsimonious nitrogen modelling in different ecosystems
TL;DR: In this paper, two parsimonious nitrogen models have been developed and implemented in two different data availability scenarios, one in a semi-arid natural forest ecosystem and the other in an anthropogenic agricultural ecosystem.
Dissertation
Modelling of the topsoil organic carbon content by analysing the potential of spectroscopic techniques for digital soil mapping
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the capacity of spectroscopy for map soil organic carbon content at regional scale using topsoil samples from Galicia (NW-Spain) and developed a spatially non-stationary approach that allows mapping soil organic content and also identifying the factors more relevant for its accumulation in Europe.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Plant Species Richness and Ecosystem Multifunctionality in Global Drylands
Fernando T. Maestre,José L. Quero,Nicholas J. Gotelli,Adrián Escudero,Victoria Ochoa,Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo,Miguel García-Gómez,Miguel García-Gómez,Matthew A. Bowker,Santiago Soliveres,Cristina Escolar,Pablo García-Palacios,Miguel Berdugo,Enrique Valencia,Beatriz Gozalo,Antonio Gallardo,Lorgio E. Aguilera,Tulio Arredondo,Julio Blones,Bertrand Boeken,Donaldo Bran,Abel Augusto Conceição,Omar Cabrera,Mohamed Chaieb,Mchich Derak,David J. Eldridge,Carlos I. Espinosa,Adriana Florentino,Juan José Gaitán,M. Gabriel Gatica,Wahida Ghiloufi,Susana Gómez-González,Julio R. Gutiérrez,Rosa M. Hernández,Xuewen Huang,Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald,Mohammad Jankju,Maria N. Miriti,Jorge Monerris,Rebecca L. Mau,Ernesto Morici,Kamal Naseri,Abelardo Ospina,Vicente Polo,Aníbal Prina,Eduardo Pucheta,David A. Ramírez-Collantes,R. L. Romão,Matthew Tighe,Cristian Torres-Díaz,James Val,José P. Veiga,Deli Wang,Eli Zaady +53 more
TL;DR: A global empirical study relating plant species richness and abiotic factors to multifunctionality in drylands, which collectively cover 41% of Earth’s land surface and support over 38% of the human population, suggests that the preservation of plant biodiversity is crucial to buffer negative effects of climate change and desertification in dryland.
Journal ArticleDOI
Towards an ecological understanding of biological nitrogen fixation
Peter M. Vitousek,Kenneth G. Cassman,Cory C. Cleveland,T. Crews,Christopher B. Field,Nancy B. Grimm,Robert W. Howarth,Roxanne Marino,Luiz Antonio Martinelli,Edward B. Rastetter,Janet I. Sprent +10 more
TL;DR: Despite the many groups of organisms capable of fixing N, and the very different ecosystems in which the process is important, it is suggested that common controls provide a foundation for the development of regional and global models that incorporate ecological controls of biological N fixation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Hierarchy of responses to resource pulses in arid and semi-arid ecosystems.
TL;DR: The idea that there exists a hierarchy of soil moisture pulse events with a corresponding hierarchy of ecological responses is developed, such that small pulses only trigger a small number of relatively minor ecological events, and larger pulses trigger a more inclusive set and some larger ecological events.
Journal ArticleDOI
Regulation of soil phosphatase and chitinase activity by N and P availability
Lydia Olander,Peter M. Vitousek +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, acid phosphatase and chitinase(N-acetyl s-D-glucosaminide) activity in soil was measured across a chronosequence in Hawaii where N and Pavailability varies substantially among sites and longterm fertilizer plots had been maintained for over 4 years.