Dataset Information

A Negative Relationship between Foliar Carbon Isotope Composition and Mass-Based Nitrogen Concentration on the Eastern Slope of Mount Gongga, China.

ABSTRACT: Plants adopt ecological strategy to resist environmental changes and increase their resource-use efficiency. The ecological strategy includes changes in physiological traits and leaf morphology, which may result in simultaneous variations in foliar N concentration and the ratio of intercellular CO2 concentration to ambient CO2 concentration (ci/ca). This in turn links to foliar carbon isotope discrimination, and thus, a relationship between foliar N concentration and foliar carbon isotope composition (?13C) is expected. To understand how plants integrate their structural and physiological resistance to environmental changes, the relationship between foliar N concentration and foliar?13C has been assessed intensively, especially the correlation between area-based N concentration (Narea) and ?13C.Less effort has been dedicated to the examination of the relationship between mass-based N concentration(Nmass) and ?13C. Studies on the Nmass-?13C relationship, especially those including a large amount of data and species, will enhance our understanding of leaf economics and benefit ecological modeling. The present study includes an intensive investigation into this relationship by measuring foliar Nmass and ?13C in a large number of plant species grown on the eastern slope of Mount Gongga, China. This study shows that foliar Nmass decreases with increasing ?13C, which is independent of functional group, vegetation type, and altitude. This suggests that a negative correlation between Nmass and ?13C may be a general pattern for plants grown not only on Mount Gongga, but also in other areas.

SUBMITTER: Li J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5117738 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

A Negative Relationship between Foliar Carbon Isotope Composition and Mass-Based Nitrogen Concentration on the Eastern Slope of Mount Gongga, China.

Li Jiazhu J Wang Guoan G Zhang Runan R Li Li L

PloS one 20161121 11

Plants adopt ecological strategy to resist environmental changes and increase their resource-use efficiency. The ecological strategy includes changes in physiological traits and leaf morphology, which may result in simultaneous variations in foliar N concentration and the ratio of intercellular CO2 concentration to ambient CO2 concentration (ci/ca). This in turn links to foliar carbon isotope discrimination, and thus, a relationship between foliar N concentration and foliar carbon isotope compos ...[more]

PMID: 27870885

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Project description:Background and aimsMycoheterotrophy entails plants meeting all or a portion of their carbon (C) demands via symbiotic interactions with root-inhabiting mycorrhizal fungi. Ecophysiological traits of mycoheterotrophs, such as their C stable isotope abundances, strongly correlate with the degree of species' dependency on fungal C gains relative to C gains via photosynthesis. Less explored is the relationship between plant evolutionary history and mycoheterotrophic plant ecophysiology. We hypothesized that the C and nitrogen (N) stable isotope compositions, and N concentrations of fully and partially mycoheterotrophic species differentiate them from autotrophs, and that plant family identity would be an additional and significant explanatory factor for differences in these traits among species. We focused on mycoheterotrophic species that associate with ectomycorrhizal fungi from plant families Ericaceae and Orchidaceae.MethodsPublished and unpublished data were compiled on the N concentrations, C and N stable isotope abundances (δ(13)C and δ(15)N) of fully (n = 18) and partially (n = 22) mycoheterotrophic species from each plant family as well as corresponding autotrophic reference species (n = 156). These data were used to calculate site-independent C and N stable isotope enrichment factors (ε). Then we tested for differences in N concentration, (13)C and (15)N enrichment among plant families and trophic strategies.Key resultsWe found that in addition to differentiating partially and fully mycoheterotrophic species from each other and from autotrophs, C and N stable isotope enrichment also differentiates plant species based on familial identity. Differences in N concentrations clustered at the plant family level rather than the degree of dependency on mycoheterotrophy.ConclusionsWe posit that differences in stable isotope composition and N concentrations are related to plant family-specific physiological interactions with fungi and their environments.

Project description:Aerosol-cloud interactions are the largest source of uncertainty in quantifying anthropogenic radiative forcing. The large uncertainty is, in part, due to the difficulty of predicting cloud microphysical parameters, such as the cloud droplet number concentration (N d). Even though rigorous first-principle approaches exist to calculate N d, the cloud and aerosol research community also relies on empirical approaches such as relating N d to aerosol mass concentration. Here we analyze relationships between N d and cloud water chemical composition, in addition to the effect of environmental factors on the degree of the relationships. Warm, marine, stratocumulus clouds off the California coast were sampled throughout four summer campaigns between 2011 and 2016. A total of 385 cloud water samples were collected and analyzed for 80 chemical species. Single- and multispecies log-log linear regressions were performed to predict N d using chemical composition. Single-species regressions reveal that the species that best predicts N d is total sulfate ( Radj2=0.40 ). Multispecies regressions reveal that adding more species does not necessarily produce a better model, as six or more species yield regressions that are statistically insignificant. A commonality among the multispecies regressions that produce the highest correlation with N d was that most included sulfate (either total or non-sea-salt), an ocean emissions tracer (such as sodium), and an organic tracer (such as oxalate). Binning the data according to turbulence, smoke influence, and in-cloud height allowed for examination of the effect of these environmental factors on the composition-N d correlation. Accounting for turbulence, quantified as the standard deviation of vertical wind speed, showed that the correlation between N d with both total sulfate and sodium increased at higher turbulence conditions, consistent with turbulence promoting the mixing between ocean surface and cloud base. Considering the influence of smoke significantly improved the correlation with N d for two biomass burning tracer species in the study region, specifically oxalate and iron. When binning by in-cloud height, non-sea-salt sulfate and sodium correlated best with N d at cloud top, whereas iron and oxalate correlated best with N d at cloud base.

Dataset Information

A Negative Relationship between Foliar Carbon Isotope Composition and Mass-Based Nitrogen Concentration on the Eastern Slope of Mount Gongga, China.

Publications

A Negative Relationship between Foliar Carbon Isotope Composition and Mass-Based Nitrogen Concentration on the Eastern Slope of Mount Gongga, China.

Similar Datasets

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