Publication
Title
Ecosystem responses to elevated governed by plantsoil interactions and the cost of nitrogen acquisition
Author
Abstract
Land ecosystems sequester on average about a quarter of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. It has been proposed that nitrogen (N) availability will exert an increasingly limiting effect on plants ability to store additional carbon (C) under rising CO2, but these mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we review findings from elevated CO2 experiments using a plant economics framework, highlighting how ecosystem responses to elevated CO2 may depend on the costs and benefits of plant interactions with mycorrhizal fungi and symbiotic N-fixing microbes. We found that N-acquisition efficiency is positively correlated with leaf-level photosynthetic capacity and plant growth, and negatively with soil C storage. Plants that associate with ectomycorrhizal fungi and N-fixers may acquire N at a lower cost than plants associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. However, the additional growth in ectomycorrhizal plants is partly offset by decreases in soil C pools via priming. Collectively, our results indicate that predictive models aimed at quantifying C cycle feedbacks to global change may be improved by treating N as a resource that can be acquired by plants in exchange for energy, with different costs depending on plant interactions with microbial symbionts.
Language
English
Source (journal)
New phytologist. - Oxford
Publication
Hoboken : Wiley , 2018
ISSN
0028-646X
DOI
10.1111/NPH.14872
Volume/pages
217 :2 (2018) , p. 507-522
ISI
000419324000008
Pubmed ID
29105765
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Project info
Effects of phosphorus limitations on Life, Earth system and Society (IMBALANCE-P).
Global Ecosystem Functioning and Interactions with Global Change.
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 15.01.2018
Last edited 09.10.2023
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