Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of nitrogen (N) deposition on clonal growth in a rhizome clonal plant, Leymus chinensis (Trin.) Tzvel. Design/methodology/approach The study established seven N concentration gradients (0, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64 g N m−2) to simulate the continuous increase in N deposition for the cultivation of L. chinensis seedlings and assess the response mechanism of the cloned L. chinensis plant at different N levels by analyzing the aboveground and belowground plant appearance traits, parent ramets and daughter ramets of resource allocation and biomass allocation. Findings The results of this study showed that the different N treatment levels could promote clonal growth and had certain regularity under the seven treatments. The addition of N could significantly increase the ramet number, rhizome length, rhizome spacer length, biomass of mother ramets, daughter ramets and belowground L. chinensis population when the N addition was greater than 4 g m−2; however, the clonal growth ability of L. chinensis decreased and the rhizome length, ramet number, stem and leaf biomass of daughter ramets and stem biomass of mother ramets significantly decreased when the N addition was greater than 32 g N m−2. Originality/value With global warming, atmospheric N deposition is increasing and it is of great significance to explore the response mechanism of different N levels for the growth of clone plants. This study provides basic data and a theoretical basis for the survival prediction of cloned plants under the background of a global climate change strategy and has important theoretical and practical significance for the scientific management of grasslands in the future.
Highlights
With the development of society, human factors such as industrial production and agricultural activities cause drastic changes in the global climate, including climate warming, changes in precipitation patterns and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition, which have an important impact on terrestrial ecosystems
3.2 Effect of N addition on the biomass allocation of L. chinensis The total biomass, aboveground biomass and belowground biomass of L. chinensis significantly increased across the N addition gradient; when the N treatment was greater than 32 g N mÀ2, the total biomass and belowground biomass decreased significantly (p < 0.05), while the aboveground biomass tended to be flat [Figure 2(a)]
We found that N addition could promote the clonal propagation of L. chinensis, but the magnitude of the positive effect decreased at a relatively high rate
Summary
With the development of society, human factors such as industrial production and agricultural activities cause drastic changes in the global climate, including climate warming, changes in precipitation patterns and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition, which have an important impact on terrestrial ecosystems. Changes in these environmental factors are accompanied by changes in the biodiversity, productivity and phenological, physiological and reproductive characteristics of the plant communities in an ecosystem (Frenne et al, 2018; Bogdziewicz et al, 2017). Different plant species or organs have different uptake and utilization methods based on N availability, which changes the growth history of plants through competition (Hautier et al, 2009)
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