Abstract
Phosphorus (P) is arguably more limiting than nitrogen for forest ecosystems being free of disturbances for lengthy time periods. The elucidation of multivariate relationships between foliar P and its primary drivers for dominant species is an urgent issue and formidable challenge for ecologists. Our goal was to evaluate the effects of primary drivers on foliar P of Quercus wutaishanica, the dominant species in broadleaved deciduous forest at the Loess Plateau, China. We sampled the leaves of 90 Q. wutaishanica individuals across broad climate and soil nutrient gradients at the Loess Plateau, China, and employed structural equation models (SEM) to evaluate multiple causal pathways and the relative importance of the drivers for foliar P per unit mass (Pmass) and per unit area (Parea). Our SEMs explained 73% and 81% of the variations in Pmass and Parea, respectively. Pmass was negatively correlated to leaf mass per area, positively correlated to leaf area, and increased with mean annual precipitation and total soil potassium. Parea was positively correlated to leaf mass per area, leaf dry weight, and increased significantly with total soil potassium. Our results demonstrated that leaf P content of Q. wutaishanica increased with total soil potassium in the Loess Plateau accordingly.
Highlights
Leaf nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) play crucial roles in productivity and other biological processes [1,2,3,4,5,6]
By using structural equation modeling (SEM) [43], we examined the influences of climate, soil nutrients, and the morphological traits of leaves on the variations in leaf per unit mass (Pmass) and per unit area (Parea) of Q. wutaishanica
Pmass was negatively correlated to Leaf mass per area (LMA) (Table 2) and positively correlated to leaf area (LA) (Table 2), and Parea was positively correlated to LMA and leaf dry weight (LDW) (Table 2)
Summary
Leaf nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) play crucial roles in productivity and other biological processes [1,2,3,4,5,6]. N and P are the most common limiting elements, either individually, and/or in combination [7,8,9,10,11]. Nitrogen supply increases with on-going increases in atmospheric N deposition [12]. A fixed complement of P is primarily derived from rock weathering, and even very small losses of P may not be readily replenished [13]. The availability of P declines during long-term ecosystem development, and may eventually lead to P-deficient soils [5, 7, 13].
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