Community Ecology
Volume/Issue:
Volume 6: Issue 1
Effects of nitrogen fertilizer on the composition of two prairie plant communities
Authors:
J. K. Piper Department of Biology, Bethel College North Newton, KS 67117, USA

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D. N. Billings Department of Biology, Bethel College North Newton, KS 67117, USA

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V. J. Leite Department of Biology, Bethel College North Newton, KS 67117, USA

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Pages:
93–100
Online Publication Date:
08 Aug 2005
Publication Date:
01 Jun 2005
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/comec.6.2005.1.10
Keywords:
Diversity; Diversity; Nitrogen; Plant species composition; Sand prairie; Tallgrass prairie
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In recent decades, nitrogenous compounds, arising from various anthropogenic sources, have become significant components of precipitation and have been shown to have some profound effects on both species richness and dominance of some plant communities. To examine how nitrogen addition can affect the species composition of Central Great Plains prairie plant communities, we applied N fertilizer at five levels for each of five consecutive years at two sites in south-central Kansas with similar rainfall and temperature regimes. One site was a tallgrass prairie and the other was a sand prairie community. The treatments consisted of N additions at the rate of 0, 5, 10, 20, and 40 g N/m2 in the form of solid urea. Within permanent plots, we monitored annually species richness and evenness, and percentage cover by cool-season graminoids, N-fixing species, and annual/biennial species. All these measures varied considerably among years at both sites, but N treatment effects were evident at the sand prairie site only. At the sand prairie, in general species richness and percentage cover by legumes declined with N addition. Moreover, species were excluded non-randomly from N addition plots, with several species apparently particularly intolerant of N addition. The results reinforce a relationship, observed in Europe and the northern Great Plains, between N addition and plant biodiversity decline in grassland communities, and may point to a serious conservation concern for rare species under a chronic regime  of N-enhanced precipitation.

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Cover Community Ecology
Community Ecology An Interdisciplinary Journal Reporting Progress in Community and Population Studies
Print ISSN:
1585-8553
Online ISSN:
1588-2756

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Community Ecology
Language English
Size A4
Year of
Foundation		 2000
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 3
Founder Akadémiai Kiadó
Founder's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245
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Springer Nature Switzerland AG
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Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
CH-6330 Cham, Switzerland Gewerbestrasse 11.
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Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 1585-8553 (Print)
ISSN 1588-2756 (Online)

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