Negative effects of nitrogen override positive effects of phosphorus on grassland legumes worldwide

• Autores: Tognetti, Pedro Maximiliano; Prober, Suzanne M.; Báez, Selene; Chaneton, Enrique José; Firn, Jennifer; Risch, Anita C.; Schütz, Martin; Yahdjian, María Laura
• Año de publicación: 2021
• Idioma: inglés
• Tipo de recurso: artículo
• Fuente: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; Vol.118, n.28; e2023718118; http://www.pnas.org/
• Materia: EUTROPHICATION; N DEPOSITION; LEGUMES; FABACEAE; NUTRIENT NETWORK
• Institución: Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía

Fil: Tognetti, Pedro Maximiliano. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Tognetti, Pedro Maximiliano. CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Prober, Suzanne M. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation. Land and Water. Wembley, Australia.
Fil: Báez, Selene. Escuela Politécnica Nacional del Ecuador. Department of Biology. Quito, Ecuador.
Fil: Chaneton, Enrique José. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Chaneton, Enrique José. CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Firn, Jennifer. Queensland University of Technology. School of Biological and Environmental Sciences. Centre for the Environment. Brisbane, Australia.
Fil: Risch, Anita C. Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research. Community Ecology. Swiss Federal, Switzerland.
Fil: Schütz, Martin. Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research. Community Ecology. Swiss Federal, Switzerland.
Fil: Yahdjian, María Laura. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Fil: Yahdjian, María Laura. CONICET – Universidad de Buenos Aires. Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas Vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA). Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Anthropogenic nutrient enrichment is driving global biodiversity decline and modifying ecosystem functions. Theory suggests that plant functional types that fix atmospheric nitrogen have a competitive advantage in nitrogen-poor soils, but lose this advantage with increasing nitrogen supply. By contrast, the addition of phosphorus, potassium, and other nutrients may benefit such species in low nutrient environments by enhancing their nitrogen-fixing capacity. We present a global-scale experiment confirming these predictions for nitrogen-fixing legumes (Fabaceae) across 45 grasslands on six continents. Nitrogen addition reduced legume cover, richness, and biomass, particularly in nitrogen-poor soils, while cover of non–nitrogenfixing plants increased. The addition of phosphorous, potassium, and other nutrients enhanced legume abundance, but did not mitigate the negative effects of nitrogen addition. Increasing nitrogen supply thus has the potential to decrease the diversity and abundance of grassland legumes worldwide regardless of the availability of other nutrients, with consequences for biodiversity, food webs, ecosystem resilience, and genetic improvement of protein-rich agricultural plant species.
tbls., grafs.