Cong Tu, Xin Chen, Kent Burkey, and Shuijin Hu. NC State University, Unit 4, RM115, Campus Box 7903, Raleigh, NC 27695-7903
Enrichment of atmospheric CO2 and N deposition generally stimulates plant photosynthetic activity and enhances C allocation for plant symbionts such as mycorrhizae. This in turn may modify plant species interactions through differentially impacting plant nutrient acquisition. We examined how elevated CO2 and N deposition affects plant growth and whether mycorrhizae mediate interactions of a highly mycorrhizal forb (Plantago lanceolata L.) with different varieties of non-mycorrhizal plant (Festuca arundinacea Schreb) in a microcosm experiment. Plants were grown at ambient (400 mmol mol-1) and elevated CO2 (ambient + 330 mmol mol-1) levels with or without N inputs. The 15N isotope tracer was introduced to quantify the mycorrhizally mediated N acquisition of plants. Elevated CO2 significantly increased the shoot biomass ratio of P. lanceolata to F. arundinacea particularly when N was low. It also increased mycorrhizal colonization of P. lanceolata roots, but did not show any effects on F. arundinacea. Elevated CO2 enhanced 15N and total N uptake of P. lanceolata but had no effects on N acquisition of F. arundinacea. Nitrogen inputs significantly reduced the shoot biomass ratio of P. lanceolata to F. arundinacea with greater reduction under elevated CO2 than under the ambient control. These results suggest that elevated CO2 may enhance the competitive ability of mycorrhizal over non-mycorrhizal plants but N deposition may favor non-mycorrhizal plants under future atmospheric CO2 and N deposition scenarios.
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