Nutrient resorption strategies of three oak tree species in response to interannual climate variability

Baoming Du,Shirong Liu,Huawei Ji,Chunjiang Liu,Shan Yin,Hongzhang Kang

doi:10.1186/s40663-021-00350-8

Abstract

BackgroundNutrient resorption is critical for plants toward balancing their nutritional requirements and adapting to environmental variabilities, which further impacts litter quality and nutrient cycling. However, the interannual variability of nutrient resorption under climate change remains unclear.MethodsWe investigated the five-year nutrient resorption efficiencies (NuRE, %) of 14 elements in three deciduous oak tree species (Quercus aliena var. acuteserrata, Q. glandulifera, and Q. variabilis) in a warm-temperate forest of Central China and assessed their relationships with interannual climate and soil factors.ResultsNutrient resorption did not differ between species but varied significantly between different years. For each year, N, P, S, K, C, Mg, and Zn were preferentially resorbed in all of the oak species in contrast to Ca, Na, Mn, Ba, Al, Fe, Cu, which were to some extent discriminated. Among the 14 elements, the NuRE of C, N, P, S, Ca, and Mg was more sensitive to interannual climate variations in the three oak species. The carbon resorption efficiency was significantly increased during the driest year of the study (2014); N resorption efficiency was reduced with temperature; whereas N and P resorption efficiency initially decreased and then increased with precipitation. Moreover, the elements with higher NuREs typically had lower coefficient of variation (CV) in all three oak species.ConclusionsDifferent oak species exhibited analogous nutrient conservation strategies in response to annual climate variabilities, and interannual climate variations strongly impacted plant nutrient resorption. Deciduous plants may establish a tradeoff mechanism to rebalance somatic nutrients for regrowth at the end of the growing season.

Highlights

Nutrient resorption is critical for plants toward balancing their nutritional requirements and adapting to environmental variabilities, which further impacts litter quality and nutrient cycling
Interannual and interspecies variations in nutrient resorption efficiencies For all elements examined, Nutrient resorption efficiency (NuRE) generally followed the order of P, K, N, S, Mg, C, Zn, Mn, Na, Ca, Ba, Fe, Cu, and Al for the three oak species
The coefficient of variation (CV, %) of elements between the different years generally decreased with higher NuREs (Fig. 3, Table S2)

Summary

Introduction

Nutrient resorption is critical for plants toward balancing their nutritional requirements and adapting to environmental variabilities, which further impacts litter quality and nutrient cycling. Since most species are unlikely to migrate quickly enough to keep pace with environmental changes (IPCC 2014), the capacity to adapt to variations in localized environments might assist them with surviving under the altered climatic environments that are anticipated in the near future (Jump and Peñuelas 2005; Prieto and Querejeta 2020). It is largely unknown how local plants might respond to disparities in environmental factors that are driven by interannual climate variations, which is critical to elucidate the physiological and evolutionary adaptation of plants under climate change

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