Litter nitrogen concentration changes mediate effects of drought and plant species richness on litter decomposition.

Biodiversity loss, exotic plant invasion and climatic change are three important global changes that can affect litter decomposition. These effects may be interactive and these global changes thus need to be considered simultaneously. Here, we assembled herbaceous plant communities with five species richness levels (1, 2, 4, 8 or 16) and subjected them to a drought treatment (no, moderate or intensive drought) that was factorially combined with an invasion treatment (presence or absence of the non-native Symphyotrichum subulatum). We collected litter of these plant communities and let it decompose for 9 months in the plant communities from which it originated. Drought decreased litter decomposition, while invasion by S. subulatum had little impact. Increasing species richness decreased litter decomposition except under intensive drought. A structural equation model showed that drought and species richness affected litter decomposition indirectly through changes in litter nitrogen concentration rather than by altering quantity and diversity of soil meso-fauna or soil physico-chemical properties. The slowed litter decomposition under high species diversity originated from a sampling effect, specifically from low litter nitrogen concentrations in the two dominant species. We conclude that effects on litter decomposition rates that are mediated by changing concentrations of the limiting nutrient in litter need to be considered when predicting effects of global changes such as plant diversity loss.

Denitrifying bacterial community dominantly drove nitrogen removals in vertical flow constructed wetlands as impacted by macrophyte planting patterns.

The study aims to identify relations of denitrifying bacterial and fungal communities to nitrogen removals in vertical flow wetland microcosms (VFWMs) using four macrophyte species (Iris pseudacorus, Canna glauca, Scirpus validus and Cyperus alternifolius) and three species richness levels (unplanted, monocultured and 4-species mixture) as fixed factors. Results showed that among four macrophyte species, only Canna glauca planting significantly decreased nitrate removal by 87.7% in the VFWMs. The 4-species mixture improved TN and nitrate removals by 84.0% and 91.3%, but decreased ammonium removal by 94.5%. Heatmap and nonmetric multidimensional scaling analyses identified a significant difference in denitrifying bacterial community structure across macrophyte richness levels, but did not identify the difference in denitrifying fungal communities. The redundancy analysis revealed that denitrifying bacterial community individually explained 99.4% and 93.0% variance of nitrogen removals among four macrophyte species and across macrophyte richness levels, while the fungal community only explained 30.7% and 21.8% variance of nitrogen removals. Overall, the macrophyte richness and bacterial denitrifiers are the critical factors of nitrogen removals in the VFWMs, thus providing useful data to design a vertical flow constructed wetland at a full scale.

Comparison of fungal communities among ten macrophyte rhizospheres.

The fungal community composition, size and several physico-chemical properties were individually investigated in ten macrophyte rhizospheric substrates using nested PCR-denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis and soil chemical methods. Results indicated that both Dothideomycetes and Sordariomycetes were dominant fungi in macrophyte rhizospheric substrates, and denitrifying fungi (Fusarium graminearum) was found in nine of ten macrophyte rhizospheres. Fungal Shannon-Wiener diversity index (H) and richness (S) in Thalia dealbata, Typha latifolia, Iris hexagona and Hemerocallis aurantiaca rhizospheres were higher than those in other six rhizospheres. Fungal number and biomass were 1.91 × 103 CFUs g-1 dw and 1.53 µg ergosterol g-1 dw in Iris pseudacor rhizosphere, and were greater than in other nine rhizospheres. The correlation analysis showed that fungal number and biomass significantly and positively correlated to total soil phosphorus, while fungal H and S were significantly and negatively correlated to total organic carbon. The principal components analysis (PCA) showed that the fungal community significantly divided ten macrophyte rhizospheres into four groups, showing the significant difference of fungal communities among ten rhizospheric substrates. The current study revealed for the first time the importance of rhizospheric fungal community in distinguishing macrophyte rhizospheres, thus will undoubtedly widen our insight into fungal communities in aquatic rhizospheres.

[Effects of Spartina alterniflora invasion on methane emission in coastal salt marsh.] / äº’èŠ±ç±³è‰å ¥ä¾µå¯¹æ»©æ¶‚æ¹¿åœ°ç”²çƒ·æŽ’æ”¾çš„å½±å“.

To investigate the effects of Spartina alterniflora invasion on methane emission from coastal salt marsh, three S. alterniflora invasive levels were established nearby Taizhou City of Zhejiang Province, including native community, mixed community with S. alterniflora and native weeds, and mono-community of S. alterniflora. The results showed that the CH4 flux in the three communities ranged from 0.68 to 5.88 mg·m-2·h-1, and CH4 flux increased significantly with S. alterniflora invasion. CH4 flux in the mono-community of S. alterniflora being 8.7 and 2.3 times as that in the native and mixed communities, respectively. S. alterniflora invasion increased significantly methanogens number, methane production potential, methanotrophs number, methane oxidation potential, plant biomass, soil organic carbon content and soil pH, but decreased significantly soil total nitrogen content. The correlation analysis showed that the CH4 flux was positively related to methanogens number, methane production potential, methanotrophs number, methane oxidation potential, plant biomass and soil pH, but negatively related to soil total nitrogen content. Overall, our results suggested that S. alterniflora invasion improved plant biomass production and soil pH, resulting in the increases in methanogens number and methane production potential to further drive soil CH4 emission.

Facilitation drives the positive effects of plant richness on trace metal removal in a biodiversity experiment.

BACKGROUND: Phytoextraction is an environmentally acceptable and inexpensive technique for mine tailing rehabilitation that uses metallophyte plants. These plants reduce the soil trace metal contents to environmentally acceptable levels by accumulating trace metals. Recently, whether more trace metals can be removed by species-rich communities of these plants received great attention, as species richness has been reported having positive effects on ecosystem functions. However, how the species richness affects trace metals removal of plant communities of mine tailing is rarely known. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We examined the effects of species richness on soil trace metal removal in both natural and experimental plant communities. The root lengths and stem heights of each plant species were measured in order to calculate the functional diversity indices. Our results showed that trace metal (Cu, Cd, Pb and Zn) concentrations in mine tailing soil declined as species richness increased in both the natural and experimental plant communities. Species richness, rather than functional diversity, positively affected the mineralomass of the experimental plant communities. The intensity of plant-plant facilitation increased with the species richness of experimental communities. Due to the incremental role of plant-plant facilitation, most of the species had higher biomasses, higher trace metal concentrations in their plant tissues and lower malondialdehyde concentrations in their leaves. Consequently, the positive effects of species richness on mineralomass were mostly attributable to facilitation among plants. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Our results provide clear evidence that, due to plant-plant facilitation, species richness positively affects the removal of trace metals from mine tailing soil through phytoextraction and provides further information on diversity conservation and environmental remediation in a mine tailing environment.

Effects of monocot and dicot types and species richness in mesocosm constructed wetlands on removal of pollutants from wastewater.

The effects of planting type and species richness on removal of BOD5, COD, nitrogen and phosphorus were studied in mesocosms with monocot alone (M), dicot alone (D) and mixed planting of M+D, where each planting type had four species richness levels. Above- and below-ground plant biomasses increased with the M and M+D species richness as shown by one-way ANOVA. The M+D type had the highest above-ground biomass, whereas the M type had the highest below-ground biomass among planting types. Carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in the microbial biomass increased with the richness of the M and M+D type. Removals of BOD5, COD, inorganic P and total P did not change with the richness, but removals of NH4-N, NO3-N increased. Planting type impacted only removal of inorganic P, with higher removal of inorganic P in the M type.

[Complex effects of simulated acid rain and Cu on the physiological characteristics of Paulownia fortunei and its detoxification mechanism].

A pot experiment was conducted to study the effects of simulated acid rain (pH 4.0, 5.0) and Cu (0-200 mg x kg(-1)) on the physiological characteristics of Paulownia fortunei and its detoxification mechanism. With no Cu addition, the leaf chlorophyll, carotenoid, O2 division by, H2O2, and MDA contents of P. fortunei had no significant differences between the two acid rain treatments. However, with the addition of 100 and 200 mg Cu x kg(-1), the chlorophyll and carotenoid contents of treatment pH 4.0 were lower, while the O2 divided by, H2O2 and MDA contents were higher thanthose of treatment pH 5.0. The chlorophyll a/b ratio of treatments Cu was higher than that of the control. The leaf Cu content decreased obviously with the increasing acidity of stimulated acid rain, but the root Cu content was in reverse. With increasing Cu addition, both the activities of superoxide dismutase (SOD), peroxidase (POD), catalase (CAT), and ascorbate peroxidase (APX) and the total contents of phytochelatins (PCs) and glutathione (GSH) in treatment pH 5.0 increased, while the activities of SOD, POD, CAT and APX in treatment pH 4.0 decreased after an initial increase, and the total contents of glutathione (GSH) decreased greatly in treatment 200 mg Cu x kg(-1). All of these demonstrated that the oxidative stress of high Cu concentration to P. fortunei was aggravated by stimulated acid rain.

Effects of plant diversity on nutrient retention and enzyme activities in a full-scale constructed wetland.

This study focused on the relationship between plant diversity (six species richness levels) and nutrient retention and enzyme activities associated with carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus cycling in a full-scale constructed wetland (CW) fed with post-treatment domestic wastewater. Effects of plant species richness on nutrient retention and enzyme activities were assessed using soil chemical and zymological methods, respectively. Retention of NH(4)-N and NO(3)-N in the wetland substrate increased with increasing species richness, while phosphorus retention significantly decreased under the richness level of 16 species per plot. Activities of enzymes such as dehydrogenase, beta-glucosidase, invertase, phenol oxidase, L-arsparaginase, protease and nitrate reductase, while they were affected by plant species richness, were strongly depended on the presence or absence of plants in CW substrate, while activities of enzymes such as CM-cellulase, urease and acid phosphatase were strongly depended on plant species richness. We conclude that plant species richness influenced nutrient retention and enzyme activities in the substrate in our subtropical CW; increase plant species richness in CW will likely improve the efficiency of wastewater treatment.

[Effects of Miscanthus floridulus on microbial biomass and basal respiration in heavy metals polluted soils].

Vegetation coverage is an important parameter in terrestrial ecological process, meteorological, and climatic models. By eliminating the errors from the precision of image classification and the noises of remote sensing images, and by using the actual data from fieldwork, this paper determined the maximum and minimum values of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), improved the sub-pixel model, and verified this model by calculating the vegetation coverage of Beijing. The results showed that the estimation value of the improved model was very close to the measurements, especially for the herbaceous plants whose vegetation types were the same but the densities were different. However, the estimation error of arborous vegetation coverage was relatively large, probably due to the effects of remote sensing image resolution, vegetation fragmentation, and mixed pixel model.