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Land Degradation Changes the Role of Above- and Belowground Competition in Regulating Plant Biomass Allocation in an Alpine Meadow
The allocation pattern of plant biomass presents the strategy of the plant community to adopt environmental changes, while the driver of biomass allocation is still unclear in degraded alpine grassland ecosystems. To explore the issue, this study investigated the shoot-to-root (R/S) ratio, plant abo...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8850915/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35185988 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822594 |
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author | Zhang, Yong Zheng, Qiuzhu Gao, Xiaoxia Ma, Yandan Liang, Kemin Yue, Haitao Huang, Xiaoxia Wu, Kaiting Wang, Xiaorong |
author_facet | Zhang, Yong Zheng, Qiuzhu Gao, Xiaoxia Ma, Yandan Liang, Kemin Yue, Haitao Huang, Xiaoxia Wu, Kaiting Wang, Xiaorong |
author_sort | Zhang, Yong |
collection | PubMed |
description | The allocation pattern of plant biomass presents the strategy of the plant community to adopt environmental changes, while the driver of biomass allocation is still unclear in degraded alpine grassland ecosystems. To explore the issue, this study investigated the shoot-to-root (R/S) ratio, plant aboveground traits, and root competition of three functional groups (i.e., grasses, sedges, and forbs) at three degradation levels (i.e., no obvious degradation, ND; moderate degradation, MD; and severe degradation, SD) in an alpine meadow in the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The relationships among plant aboveground traits, root competition, and R/S ratio were tested using the structural equation model (SEM). The results showed that the shoot and root biomass tended to decrease, but the R/S ratio of the plant community did not change along the degradation gradient. Plant height, lateral spread, and leaf length of most plant functional groups reduced, while leaf width and leaf area of most plant functional groups did not change along the degradation gradients. The root competition ability (presented as the fraction of root biomass in total biomass) of sedges in MD was the lowest, while that of grasses was the highest. The effects of aboveground competition on the R/S ratio were non-linear because of the different roles of plant height, lateral spread, and leaf area in regulating the R/S ratio along the degradation gradient. In contrast, the effects of belowground competition on the R/S ratio were linear because belowground competition promoted the R/S ratio, and the strength of this effect reduced along the degradation gradient. These results indicate that plant competition might be a critical factor to maintain the high R/S ratio in degraded alpine meadows. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8850915 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-88509152022-02-18 Land Degradation Changes the Role of Above- and Belowground Competition in Regulating Plant Biomass Allocation in an Alpine Meadow Zhang, Yong Zheng, Qiuzhu Gao, Xiaoxia Ma, Yandan Liang, Kemin Yue, Haitao Huang, Xiaoxia Wu, Kaiting Wang, Xiaorong Front Plant Sci Plant Science The allocation pattern of plant biomass presents the strategy of the plant community to adopt environmental changes, while the driver of biomass allocation is still unclear in degraded alpine grassland ecosystems. To explore the issue, this study investigated the shoot-to-root (R/S) ratio, plant aboveground traits, and root competition of three functional groups (i.e., grasses, sedges, and forbs) at three degradation levels (i.e., no obvious degradation, ND; moderate degradation, MD; and severe degradation, SD) in an alpine meadow in the eastern Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The relationships among plant aboveground traits, root competition, and R/S ratio were tested using the structural equation model (SEM). The results showed that the shoot and root biomass tended to decrease, but the R/S ratio of the plant community did not change along the degradation gradient. Plant height, lateral spread, and leaf length of most plant functional groups reduced, while leaf width and leaf area of most plant functional groups did not change along the degradation gradients. The root competition ability (presented as the fraction of root biomass in total biomass) of sedges in MD was the lowest, while that of grasses was the highest. The effects of aboveground competition on the R/S ratio were non-linear because of the different roles of plant height, lateral spread, and leaf area in regulating the R/S ratio along the degradation gradient. In contrast, the effects of belowground competition on the R/S ratio were linear because belowground competition promoted the R/S ratio, and the strength of this effect reduced along the degradation gradient. These results indicate that plant competition might be a critical factor to maintain the high R/S ratio in degraded alpine meadows. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-02-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8850915/ /pubmed/35185988 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822594 Text en Copyright © 2022 Zhang, Zheng, Gao, Ma, Liang, Yue, Huang, Wu and Wang. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Plant Science Zhang, Yong Zheng, Qiuzhu Gao, Xiaoxia Ma, Yandan Liang, Kemin Yue, Haitao Huang, Xiaoxia Wu, Kaiting Wang, Xiaorong Land Degradation Changes the Role of Above- and Belowground Competition in Regulating Plant Biomass Allocation in an Alpine Meadow |
title | Land Degradation Changes the Role of Above- and Belowground Competition in Regulating Plant Biomass Allocation in an Alpine Meadow |
title_full | Land Degradation Changes the Role of Above- and Belowground Competition in Regulating Plant Biomass Allocation in an Alpine Meadow |
title_fullStr | Land Degradation Changes the Role of Above- and Belowground Competition in Regulating Plant Biomass Allocation in an Alpine Meadow |
title_full_unstemmed | Land Degradation Changes the Role of Above- and Belowground Competition in Regulating Plant Biomass Allocation in an Alpine Meadow |
title_short | Land Degradation Changes the Role of Above- and Belowground Competition in Regulating Plant Biomass Allocation in an Alpine Meadow |
title_sort | land degradation changes the role of above- and belowground competition in regulating plant biomass allocation in an alpine meadow |
topic | Plant Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8850915/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35185988 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.822594 |
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