Abstract
Understanding the geographic patterns and potential drivers of leaf stoichiometry and plant biomass is critical for modeling the biogeochemical cycling of ecosystems and to forecast the responses of ecosystems to global changes. Therefore, we studied the spatial patterns and potential drivers of leaf stoichiometry and herb biomass from 15 sites spanning from south to north along a 500 km latitudinal gradient of the Loess Plateau. We found that leaf N and P stoichiometry and the biomass of herb plants varied greatly on the Loess Plateau, showing spatial patterns, and there were significant differences among the four vegetation zones. With increasing latitude (decreasing mean annual temperature and decreasing mean precipitation), aboveground and belowground biomass displayed an opening downward parabolic trend, while the root–shoot ratio gradually decreased. Furthermore, there were significant linear relationships between the leaf nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) contents and latitude and climate (mean annual rainfall and mean annual temperature). However, the leaf N/P ratio showed no significant latitudinal or climatic trends. Redundancy analysis and stepwise regression analysis revealed herb biomass and leaf N and P contents were strongly related to environmental driving factors (slope, soil P content and latitude, altitude, mean annual rainfall and mean annual temperature). Compared with global scale results, herb plants on the Loess Plateau are characterized by relatively lower biomass, higher N content, lower P content and a higher N/P ratio, and vegetative growth may be more susceptible to P limitation. These findings indicated that the remarkable spatial distribution patterns of leaf N and P stoichiometry and herb biomass were jointly regulated by the climate, soil properties and topographic properties, providing new insights into potential vegetation restoration strategies.
Highlights
Aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB) and the ratio of roots to shoots (R/S) are regarded as important parameter of vegetation biomass, playing critical roles in estimating terrestrial ecosystem productivity and in global climate models [1,2,3,4]
Linear regression showed that the leaf N and P contents were substantially correlated with the latitude and increased with increasing latitude
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Summary
Aboveground biomass (AGB), belowground biomass (BGB) and the ratio of roots to shoots (R/S) are regarded as important parameter of vegetation biomass, playing critical roles in estimating terrestrial ecosystem productivity and in global climate models [1,2,3,4]. Studies have shown that grassland ecosystems account for 1/4 of the Earth’s land surface and 1/10 of global carbon stocks, which fixed the majority of atmospheric CO2 [6,7]. A better understanding of plant biomass is essential for understanding vegetation dynamics, terrestrial ecosystem carbon (C) stocks and their response to environmental changes [8,9,10,11]. Previous studies have demonstrated that plant biomass has important implications for community structure and ecosystem function and is affected by environmental factors [12,13,14]. The varying responses of plant biomass on these environmental factors are complex, and less is known about the interactive effects of potential environmental driving factors (climate, soil properties, topographic properties, etc.) on the herb plant biomass of the Loess Plateau
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