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Long-term nitrogen fertilization impacts plant-microbial interactions differently in arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal trees

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Abstract

Enhanced nitrogen (N) availability in temperate forests has altered ecosystem carbon (C) and N cycling. Recent research has shown that these alterations lead to reductions in belowground C allocation by trees and that the consequences of these reductions on soil C and nutrient cycling may vary by mycorrhizal type. We hypothesized that trees that associate with ectomycorrhizal fungi (ECM) would reduce C allocation towards roots and mycorrhizal fungi to a greater extent than trees that associate with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM) in response to > 25 years of N fertilization. We further hypothesized that N induced decoupling of roots and microbes in ECM trees would be evidenced by greater declines in extracellular enzyme activities. We measured belowground C allocation to fine root biomass and mycorrhizal colonization in 6 AM and 6 ECM dominated plots in the N fertilized and reference watersheds at the Fernow Experimental Forest in West Virginia, USA. We compared these to measurements of simple-C, complex-C, nitrogen, and phosphorus acquiring enzyme activities in organic horizon, bulk mineral, and rhizosphere soil fractions. N fertilization reduced fine root biomass and mycorrhizal colonization in both AM and ECM stands. We found more consistent reductions in enzyme activities in ECM soils than AM soils under N fertilization which may have been driven by greater declines in root-C transfer to soil microbes. This mechanism helps to explain variability in soil C cycling responses across N gradient and fertilization experiments and may prove useful in predicting the fate of soil C stocks in response to N deposition.

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Data availability

The data supporting these findings is available in the Environmental Data Initiative database at https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/51e2c55d42a3c68b1a8c7efab2050c69.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Mary Beth Adams, Tom Schuler, and the US Forest Service staff at the Fernow Experimental Forest for logistical assistance and access to the experimental watersheds. We thank Christopher Walter, Mark Burnham, and Justin Mathias for technical assistance. We thank the undergraduate researchers who helped collect the data presented in this study. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to Joseph Carrara under Grant No. DGE-1102689.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship to Joseph Carrara under Grant No. DGE-1102689.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biology, West Virginia University, 53 Campus Drive, Morgantown, WV, 26505, USA

    Joseph E. Carrara & Edward R. Brzostek

  2. Asian School of the Environment, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Ave, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Nanette C. Raczka

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  1. Joseph E. Carrara
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JEC and ERB designed the study. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by all authors. The first draft of the manuscript was written by JEC and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Joseph E. Carrara.

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Carrara, J.E., Raczka, N.C. & Brzostek, E.R. Long-term nitrogen fertilization impacts plant-microbial interactions differently in arbuscular and ectomycorrhizal trees. Biogeochemistry 166, 109–122 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-023-01099-8

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