Enhanced foliar N enrichment with increasing nitrogen addition rates: Role of plant species and nitrogen compounds.

Determining the abundance of N isotope (δ N) in natural environments is a simple but powerful method for providing integrated information on the N cycling dynamics and status in an ecosystem under exogenous N inputs. However, whether the input of different N compounds could differently impact plant growth and their N signatures remains unclear. Here, the response of N signatures and growth of three dominant plants (Leymus chinensis, Carex duriuscula, and Thermopsis lanceolata) to the addition of three N compounds (NH HCO , urea, and NH NO ) at multiple N addition rates were assessed in a meadow steppe in Inner Mongolia. The three plants showed different initial foliar δ N values because of differences in their N acquisition strategies. Particularly, T. lanceolata (N -fixing species) showed significantly lower N signatures than L. chinensis (associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi [AMF]) and C. duriuscula (associated with AMF). Moreover, the foliar δ N of all three species increased with increasing N addition rates, with a sharp increase above an N addition rate of ~10 g N m  year . Foliar δ N values were significantly higher when NH HCO and urea were added than when NH NO was added, suggesting that adding weakly acidifying N compounds could result in a more open N cycle. Overall, our results imply that assessing the N transformation processes in the context of increasing global N deposition necessitates the consideration of N deposition rates, forms of the deposited N compounds, and N utilization strategies of the co-existing plant species in the ecosystem.