Impact of nitrogen addition on plant community in a semi-arid temperate steppe in China

Increased nitrogen (N) deposition will often lead to a decline in species richness in grassland ecosystems but the shifts in functional groups and plant traits are still poorly understood in China.A field experiment was conducted at Duolun, Inner Mongolia, China, to investigate the effects of N addition on a temperate steppe ecosystem.Six N levels (0, 3, 6, 12, 24, and 48 g N/(m 2 ⋅a)) were added as three applications per year from 2005 to 2010.Enhanced N deposition, even as little as 3 g N/(m 2 ⋅a) above ambient N deposition (1.2 g N/(m 2 ⋅a)), led to a decline in species richness of the whole community.Increasing N addition can significantly stimulate aboveground biomass of perennial bunchgrasses (PB) but decrease perennial forbs (PF), and induce a slight change in the biomass of shrubs and semi-shrubs (SS).The biomass of annuals (AS) and perennial rhizome grasses (PR) accounts for only a small part of the total biomass.Species richness of PF decreased significantly with increasing N addition rate but there was a little change in the other functional groups.PB, as the dominant functional group, has a relatively higher height than others.Differences in the response of each functional group to N addition have site-specific and species-specific characteristics.We initially infer that N enrichment stimulated the growth of PB, which further suppressed the growth of other functional groups.