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- Title
Historic grazing enhances root-foraging plasticity rather than nitrogen absorbability in clonal offspring of Leymus chinensis.
- Authors
Li, Xiliang; Hu, Ningning; Yin, Jingjing; Ren, Weibo; Fry, Ellen
- Abstract
Aims: Plants with a history of overgrazing show trait-mediated legacy effects. These legacy effects strongly influence the growth dynamics and stress tolerance of plants, thus affecting ecosystem functioning. Long-term overgrazing has dramatic effects on plant growth and carbon assimilation via asexual propagation. However, the link between nitrogen (N) absorbability and assimilation with grazing-induced plant legacy effects remains largely unknown. Methods: We investigated the strength of legacy effects induced by long-term overgrazing on N uptake and metabolism in the clonal plant Leymus chinensis, and its associated changes at the physiological and molecular levels. These tests were conducted in both field and greenhouse experiments. Results: The clonal offspring of overgrazed L. chinensis were significantly smaller than the control offspring, with lower individual N uptake and utilisation efficiency, indicating that the N dynamics were affected by plant legacy effects. The response ratios of root length and biomass to N patches in the clonal offspring of overgrazed L. chinensis were significantly higher than those of the control, indicating that root nutrient foraging plasticity increased in response to grazing-induced N heterogeneity. Moreover, the observed plant legacy effects decreased N acquirement but significantly increased N assimilation by increasing N resorption efficiency, with biotic stress memory activated at the enzymatic and transcriptional levels. Conclusions: We propose that multigenerational exposure of perennial plants to herbivore foraging can produce a legacy effect on N uptake, which offers insights into the potential resilience of grasslands to overgrazing.
- Subjects
VEGETATIVE propagation; GRAZING; NITROGEN; ECOSYSTEMS; PLANT assimilation; PLANT growth; ANIMAL offspring sex ratio
- Publication
Plant & Soil, 2021, Vol 466, Issue 1/2, p65
- ISSN
0032-079X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11104-021-05033-5