2026-10-14T14:40:21Z https://www.scidb.cn/oai

10.57760/sciencedb.06452 2022-11-17T13:50:39Z

2022-11-17 Plant species diversity enhancing soil N cycling doi:10.57760/sciencedb.06452 en Plant species diversity (PSD) regulates ecosystem functions and has been shown to promote soil nitrogen (N) availability. Nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying the effect of PSD on soil N availability have not been well explored. Here, 45 plots with a natural PSD gradient ranging from 0.15 to 3.57 were selected in a subtropical forest to explore the effect of PSD on soil N transformations. Higher PSD significantly enhanced the rates of gross N mineralization, gross nitrification, microbial N immobilization, net N mineralization, net nitrification, and the contents of soil total N and inorganic N. Structural equation modeling showed that PSD indirectly impacted gross N transformations via its roles in regulating soil organic matter, mineral and microbial traits. Higher PSD stimulated gross N mineralization and nitrification rates mainly via its positive effects on microbial biomass content and gene abundances of chiA, archaeal or bacterial amoA, while increased microbial N immobilization mainly due to its stimulation of soil organic matter. Our findings highlight the crucial role of PSD in stimulating soil N availability and provide a mechanistic understanding which can be integrated into Earth system models to better predict soil N availability and C sequestration in response to PSD. gross N transformations; soil N availability; functional N-cycling genes; microbial biomass; soil organic matter; plant species diversity. Zihong Zhu Hu Du Kun Gao Yuantian Fang Tongbin Zhu Jing Zhu Yi Cheng Dejun Li PUBLIC https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ dataset http://www.doi.org/https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.14407 Science Data Bank