Antithetical effects of nitrogen and water availability on community similarity of semiarid grasslands: evidence from a nine-year manipulation experiment

Abstract

Theoretical and observational studies have suggested that environmental variations would change compositional similarity between plant communities. However, this topic has rarely been examined via experiments involving direct manipulation of resources utilized by plant communities. A 9-year field manipulation experiment was conducted to examine the effects of nitrogen addition and increased water on community similarity between a steppe and an old field in the semiarid region of northern China. Over the experimental period, nitrogen addition reduced community similarity between the steppe and the old field, whereas water addition enhanced community similarity. These treatment effects were closely related to changes in diversity characteristics as well as abundance of functional groups and dominant species of plant communities. These results highlight the importance of resource availability in regulating the trajectory of ecosystem succession, and suggest that the increase in atmospheric nitrogen deposition in northern China will contribute to divergence between the steppe and the old field, whereas the increase in growing-season precipitation may encourage convergence between the two grasslands with respect to species composition during succession. Thus the decrease in community similarity caused by nitrogen enrichment may be counteracted, at least partially, by precipitation increase under changing atmosphere and climate.