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High nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of Stellera chamaejasme L. in degraded grasslands

BACKGROUND: Stellera chamaejasme L. is a poisonous plant widely distributes in degraded grasslands in China. The mechanism underlying its spread remains unknown. In some degraded grasslands, S. chamaejasme has gradually replaced previous dominant species, such as Leymus chinensis, Stipa krylovii, Ar...

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Autores principales: Guo, Lizhu, Li, Jiahuan, He, Wei, Liu, Li, Huang, Ding, Wang, Kun
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6894284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31801501
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0267-3
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author Guo, Lizhu
Li, Jiahuan
He, Wei
Liu, Li
Huang, Ding
Wang, Kun
author_facet Guo, Lizhu
Li, Jiahuan
He, Wei
Liu, Li
Huang, Ding
Wang, Kun
author_sort Guo, Lizhu
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Stellera chamaejasme L. is a poisonous plant widely distributes in degraded grasslands in China. The mechanism underlying its spread remains unknown. In some degraded grasslands, S. chamaejasme has gradually replaced previous dominant species, such as Leymus chinensis, Stipa krylovii, Artemisia eriopoda on typical steppes. Apart from its unpalatability by livestock, we hypothesized that the survival strategy (nutrient uptake and water use efficiency) of S. chamaejasme in degraded grasslands could be distinct from other coexisting species in the community. Recently, ecological stoichiometry has been suggested as a new approach for studying the demand for natural resources of plants in a changing world, and the leaf carbon isotopic composition (δ(13)C leaf) as a rapid and effective high throughput phenotyping method for water use efficiency (WUE), both of which can reveal the survival and adaptive strategies of plants. Therefore, in this study we aimed to fill the knowledge gap concerning ecological stoichiometry in the leaf, stem, and root of S. chamaejasme and its surrounding soil on grasslands with different degrees of degradation, and comparing the leaf nutrient content and δ(13)C of S. chamaejasme with the coexisting species (L. chinensis, S. krylovii, A. eriopoda) in the communities. Toward this goal, we conducted a field survey in which plants and soils were sampled from four different degraded grasslands on typical steppes in China. RESULTS: Our results showed that there is no significant difference of carbon content (C%) and nitrogen content (N%) in leaves of S. chamaejasme in different degraded grasslands, and all element contents and element ratios in stems did not differ significantly. Meanwhile, ecological stoichiometry of S. chamaejasme is distinct from the coexisting species, with low C%, high N% and phosphorus content (P%) in the leaf, indicating high nutrient uptake efficiency of S. chamaejasme in nutrient-poor environments like degraded grasslands. Additionally, S. chamaejasme showed significant higher WUE than other species. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicated that high nutrient uptake efficiency and high WUE of S. chamaejasme might together contribute to the spread of S. chamaejasme in degraded grasslands.
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spelling pubmed-68942842019-12-11 High nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of Stellera chamaejasme L. in degraded grasslands Guo, Lizhu Li, Jiahuan He, Wei Liu, Li Huang, Ding Wang, Kun BMC Ecol Research Article BACKGROUND: Stellera chamaejasme L. is a poisonous plant widely distributes in degraded grasslands in China. The mechanism underlying its spread remains unknown. In some degraded grasslands, S. chamaejasme has gradually replaced previous dominant species, such as Leymus chinensis, Stipa krylovii, Artemisia eriopoda on typical steppes. Apart from its unpalatability by livestock, we hypothesized that the survival strategy (nutrient uptake and water use efficiency) of S. chamaejasme in degraded grasslands could be distinct from other coexisting species in the community. Recently, ecological stoichiometry has been suggested as a new approach for studying the demand for natural resources of plants in a changing world, and the leaf carbon isotopic composition (δ(13)C leaf) as a rapid and effective high throughput phenotyping method for water use efficiency (WUE), both of which can reveal the survival and adaptive strategies of plants. Therefore, in this study we aimed to fill the knowledge gap concerning ecological stoichiometry in the leaf, stem, and root of S. chamaejasme and its surrounding soil on grasslands with different degrees of degradation, and comparing the leaf nutrient content and δ(13)C of S. chamaejasme with the coexisting species (L. chinensis, S. krylovii, A. eriopoda) in the communities. Toward this goal, we conducted a field survey in which plants and soils were sampled from four different degraded grasslands on typical steppes in China. RESULTS: Our results showed that there is no significant difference of carbon content (C%) and nitrogen content (N%) in leaves of S. chamaejasme in different degraded grasslands, and all element contents and element ratios in stems did not differ significantly. Meanwhile, ecological stoichiometry of S. chamaejasme is distinct from the coexisting species, with low C%, high N% and phosphorus content (P%) in the leaf, indicating high nutrient uptake efficiency of S. chamaejasme in nutrient-poor environments like degraded grasslands. Additionally, S. chamaejasme showed significant higher WUE than other species. CONCLUSIONS: Our results indicated that high nutrient uptake efficiency and high WUE of S. chamaejasme might together contribute to the spread of S. chamaejasme in degraded grasslands. BioMed Central 2019-12-04 /pmc/articles/PMC6894284/ /pubmed/31801501 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0267-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research Article
Guo, Lizhu
Li, Jiahuan
He, Wei
Liu, Li
Huang, Ding
Wang, Kun
High nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of Stellera chamaejasme L. in degraded grasslands
title High nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of Stellera chamaejasme L. in degraded grasslands
title_full High nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of Stellera chamaejasme L. in degraded grasslands
title_fullStr High nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of Stellera chamaejasme L. in degraded grasslands
title_full_unstemmed High nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of Stellera chamaejasme L. in degraded grasslands
title_short High nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of Stellera chamaejasme L. in degraded grasslands
title_sort high nutrient uptake efficiency and high water use efficiency facilitate the spread of stellera chamaejasme l. in degraded grasslands
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6894284/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31801501
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12898-019-0267-3
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