Influences of land use history and short-term nitrogen addition on community structure in temperate grasslands

摘要

Better understanding of plant community structure in relationship to land use history and nitrogen (N) will facilitate grassland conservation and projections of community succession under future N deposition. We conducted a field experiment in northern China to examine the influence of 2-year N addition on species composition and community structure in three temperate grasslands with different land use history: steppe fenced for two years (ST), steppe fenced for five years (SF), and old field grassland fenced for five years (OF). The results showed previous farming reduced species diversity and plant cover, which is mainly caused by decrease in perennial grasses (PC) and forbs (PF). Nitrogen addition increased plant cover, especially the PG cover, but had little effects on species diversity. Nitrogen enrichment also has a tendency to alter community composition by decreasing proportional cover of PF but increasing that of PG and annuals and biennials (AB), suggesting enhanced dominance of PG under increasing N deposition. Irrespective of the short-term (2 years) experimental periods, our findings highlight the dominant role of land use history in structuring plant community, and have valuable implications for grassland conservation and model projections of ecosystem succession under global scenarios of N deposition in the semi-arid grasslands.