Manning, Pete and Newington, John E. and Robson, Helen R. and Saunders, Mark and Eggers, Till and Bradford, Mark A. and Bardgett, Richard D. and Bonkowski, Michael and Ellis, Richard J. and Gange, Alan C. and Grayston, Susan J. and Kandeler, Ellen and Marhan, Sven and Reid, Eileen and Tscherko, Dagmar and Godfray, H. Charles J. and Rees, Mark (2006) Decoupling the direct and indirect effects of nitrogen deposition on ecosystem function. Ecology Letters, 9 (9). pp. 1015-1024. ISSN 1461-023X
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
Elevated nitrogen (N) inputs into terrestrial ecosystems are causing major changes to the composition and functioning of ecosystems. Understanding these changes is challenging because there are complex interactions between 'direct' effects of N on plant physiology and soil biogeochemistry, and 'indirect' effects caused by changes in plant species composition. By planting high N and low N plant community compositions into high and low N deposition model terrestrial ecosystems we experimentally decoupled direct and indirect effects and quantified their contribution to changes in carbon, N and water cycling. Our results show that direct effects on plant growth dominate ecosystem response to N deposition, although long-term carbon storage is reduced under high N plant-species composition. These findings suggest that direct effects of N deposition on ecosystem function could be relatively strong in comparison with the indirect effects of plant community change.