Long-term stability of sapling dynamics is regulated by soil phosphorus availability in subtropical forest

Minxia Liang; Yi Zheng; David Johnson; David F.R.P. Burslem; Liuqing Shi; Juanjuan Zhang; Shixiao Yu; Xubing Liu

doi:10.1111/1365-2745.14261

Long-term stability of sapling dynamics is regulated by soil phosphorus availability in subtropical forest

Minxia Liang^* (Corresponding Author), Yi Zheng, David Johnson, David F.R.P. Burslem, Liuqing Shi, Juanjuan Zhang, Shixiao Yu, Xubing Liu^* (Corresponding Author)

^*Corresponding author for this work

Aberdeen Centre For Environmental Sustainability

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

The abiotic and biotic factors that regulate stability in species-rich forests are poorly resolved, and this limits the ability to predict how climate change and other perturbations impact forest dynamics. Phosphorus limitation and nitrogen deposition are important factors affecting the dynamics and functioning of tropical and subtropical forests, but how long-term temporal stability of tree communities is affected by availability and heterogeneity of soil phosphorus and nitrogen remains unclear. We collected annual dynamic data of 20,768 regenerating saplings, which were censused from 2008 to 2019 in a subtropical forest, to investigate how soil nutrients affect the temporal stability of productivity at both population and community levels. We found that concentrations of soil inorganic phosphorus were significantly and positively correlated with sapling richness and phylogenetic diversity, leading to significantly higher species asynchrony and community temporal stability. By contrast, higher concentrations of organic phosphorus weakened community stability via a negative effect on species richness. Structural equation models provide further strong evidence that increasing concentrations of soil inorganic phosphorus strongly promoted community temporal stability via increased species diversity, species asynchrony and population stability, while organic phosphorus displayed opposite effects. Meanwhile, soil concentrations of available and unavailable forms of nitrogen showed much weaker and negative associations with community stability. Synthesis. Using a 12-year data set of sapling demography from a subtropical forest of south China, our study demonstrates that soil phosphorus is an important determinant of the long-term stability of sapling dynamics and consequently the whole-community structure, and the composition of soil phosphorus pools predicts the temporal stability and diversity of tree communities in phosphorus-limited forests.

Original language	English
Number of pages	14
Journal	Journal of Ecology
Early online date	18 Jan 2024
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.14261
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 18 Jan 2024

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful to Yongfan Wang for helpful discussions. We thank Weinan Ye, Xuelian Tan and Dr Buhang Li for help with field data collection. We thank Prof. Shaopeng Li from East China Normal University, two anonymous reviewers, and the editor for their constructive suggestions on the manuscript. This research was funded by the National Key Research Development Program of China (#2022YFF0802303), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32171523, 31922051 to XL, and 32071539, 32122054 to M.L.), the Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundations of Guangdong (2019A1515012011, 2020A1515010348) and Guangzhou (202102020232), the Newton Advanced Fellowship of the Royal Society (NAF\R1\201192), and a NERC award (NE/R004986/1).

Data Availability Statement

PEER REVIEW
The peer review history for this article is available at https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1111/1365-2745.14261.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT
All data used in this article are available from Figshare Repository https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.24833181.v1 (Liang et al., 2023).

Keywords

biodiversity
community stability
nitrogen
phosphorus
seedling dynamics
subtropical forest

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1111/1365-2745.14261Licence: Unspecified

Cite this

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title = "Long-term stability of sapling dynamics is regulated by soil phosphorus availability in subtropical forest",

abstract = "The abiotic and biotic factors that regulate stability in species-rich forests are poorly resolved, and this limits the ability to predict how climate change and other perturbations impact forest dynamics. Phosphorus limitation and nitrogen deposition are important factors affecting the dynamics and functioning of tropical and subtropical forests, but how long-term temporal stability of tree communities is affected by availability and heterogeneity of soil phosphorus and nitrogen remains unclear. We collected annual dynamic data of 20,768 regenerating saplings, which were censused from 2008 to 2019 in a subtropical forest, to investigate how soil nutrients affect the temporal stability of productivity at both population and community levels. We found that concentrations of soil inorganic phosphorus were significantly and positively correlated with sapling richness and phylogenetic diversity, leading to significantly higher species asynchrony and community temporal stability. By contrast, higher concentrations of organic phosphorus weakened community stability via a negative effect on species richness. Structural equation models provide further strong evidence that increasing concentrations of soil inorganic phosphorus strongly promoted community temporal stability via increased species diversity, species asynchrony and population stability, while organic phosphorus displayed opposite effects. Meanwhile, soil concentrations of available and unavailable forms of nitrogen showed much weaker and negative associations with community stability. Synthesis. Using a 12-year data set of sapling demography from a subtropical forest of south China, our study demonstrates that soil phosphorus is an important determinant of the long-term stability of sapling dynamics and consequently the whole-community structure, and the composition of soil phosphorus pools predicts the temporal stability and diversity of tree communities in phosphorus-limited forests.",

keywords = "biodiversity, community stability, nitrogen, phosphorus, seedling dynamics, subtropical forest",

author = "Minxia Liang and Yi Zheng and David Johnson and Burslem, {David F.R.P.} and Liuqing Shi and Juanjuan Zhang and Shixiao Yu and Xubing Liu",

note = "Funding Information: We are grateful to Yongfan Wang for helpful discussions. We thank Weinan Ye, Xuelian Tan and Dr Buhang Li for help with field data collection. We thank Prof. Shaopeng Li from East China Normal University, two anonymous reviewers, and the editor for their constructive suggestions on the manuscript. This research was funded by the National Key Research Development Program of China (#2022YFF0802303), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32171523, 31922051 to XL, and 32071539, 32122054 to M.L.), the Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundations of Guangdong (2019A1515012011, 2020A1515010348) and Guangzhou (202102020232), the Newton Advanced Fellowship of the Royal Society (NAF\R1\201192), and a NERC award (NE/R004986/1). ",

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doi = "10.1111/1365-2745.14261",

language = "English",

journal = "Journal of Ecology",

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T1 - Long-term stability of sapling dynamics is regulated by soil phosphorus availability in subtropical forest

AU - Liang, Minxia

AU - Zheng, Yi

AU - Johnson, David

AU - Burslem, David F.R.P.

AU - Shi, Liuqing

AU - Zhang, Juanjuan

AU - Yu, Shixiao

AU - Liu, Xubing

N1 - Funding Information: We are grateful to Yongfan Wang for helpful discussions. We thank Weinan Ye, Xuelian Tan and Dr Buhang Li for help with field data collection. We thank Prof. Shaopeng Li from East China Normal University, two anonymous reviewers, and the editor for their constructive suggestions on the manuscript. This research was funded by the National Key Research Development Program of China (#2022YFF0802303), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32171523, 31922051 to XL, and 32071539, 32122054 to M.L.), the Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundations of Guangdong (2019A1515012011, 2020A1515010348) and Guangzhou (202102020232), the Newton Advanced Fellowship of the Royal Society (NAF\R1\201192), and a NERC award (NE/R004986/1).

PY - 2024/1/18

Y1 - 2024/1/18

N2 - The abiotic and biotic factors that regulate stability in species-rich forests are poorly resolved, and this limits the ability to predict how climate change and other perturbations impact forest dynamics. Phosphorus limitation and nitrogen deposition are important factors affecting the dynamics and functioning of tropical and subtropical forests, but how long-term temporal stability of tree communities is affected by availability and heterogeneity of soil phosphorus and nitrogen remains unclear. We collected annual dynamic data of 20,768 regenerating saplings, which were censused from 2008 to 2019 in a subtropical forest, to investigate how soil nutrients affect the temporal stability of productivity at both population and community levels. We found that concentrations of soil inorganic phosphorus were significantly and positively correlated with sapling richness and phylogenetic diversity, leading to significantly higher species asynchrony and community temporal stability. By contrast, higher concentrations of organic phosphorus weakened community stability via a negative effect on species richness. Structural equation models provide further strong evidence that increasing concentrations of soil inorganic phosphorus strongly promoted community temporal stability via increased species diversity, species asynchrony and population stability, while organic phosphorus displayed opposite effects. Meanwhile, soil concentrations of available and unavailable forms of nitrogen showed much weaker and negative associations with community stability. Synthesis. Using a 12-year data set of sapling demography from a subtropical forest of south China, our study demonstrates that soil phosphorus is an important determinant of the long-term stability of sapling dynamics and consequently the whole-community structure, and the composition of soil phosphorus pools predicts the temporal stability and diversity of tree communities in phosphorus-limited forests.

AB - The abiotic and biotic factors that regulate stability in species-rich forests are poorly resolved, and this limits the ability to predict how climate change and other perturbations impact forest dynamics. Phosphorus limitation and nitrogen deposition are important factors affecting the dynamics and functioning of tropical and subtropical forests, but how long-term temporal stability of tree communities is affected by availability and heterogeneity of soil phosphorus and nitrogen remains unclear. We collected annual dynamic data of 20,768 regenerating saplings, which were censused from 2008 to 2019 in a subtropical forest, to investigate how soil nutrients affect the temporal stability of productivity at both population and community levels. We found that concentrations of soil inorganic phosphorus were significantly and positively correlated with sapling richness and phylogenetic diversity, leading to significantly higher species asynchrony and community temporal stability. By contrast, higher concentrations of organic phosphorus weakened community stability via a negative effect on species richness. Structural equation models provide further strong evidence that increasing concentrations of soil inorganic phosphorus strongly promoted community temporal stability via increased species diversity, species asynchrony and population stability, while organic phosphorus displayed opposite effects. Meanwhile, soil concentrations of available and unavailable forms of nitrogen showed much weaker and negative associations with community stability. Synthesis. Using a 12-year data set of sapling demography from a subtropical forest of south China, our study demonstrates that soil phosphorus is an important determinant of the long-term stability of sapling dynamics and consequently the whole-community structure, and the composition of soil phosphorus pools predicts the temporal stability and diversity of tree communities in phosphorus-limited forests.

KW - biodiversity

KW - community stability

KW - nitrogen

KW - phosphorus

KW - seedling dynamics

KW - subtropical forest

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U2 - 10.1111/1365-2745.14261

DO - 10.1111/1365-2745.14261

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JF - Journal of Ecology

ER -

Long-term stability of sapling dynamics is regulated by soil phosphorus availability in subtropical forest

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Data Availability Statement

Keywords

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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