Organic phosphorus cycling may control grassland responses to nitrogen deposition: a long-term field manipulation and modelling study

Taylor, Christopher R.; Janes-Bassett, Victoria; Phoenix, Gareth K.; Keane, Ben; Hartley, Iain P.; Davies, Jessica A. C.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4021-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 13

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4021-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4021-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 13

Research article

|

06 Jul 2021

Research article |

| 06 Jul 2021

Organic phosphorus cycling may control grassland responses to nitrogen deposition: a long-term field manipulation and modelling study

Christopher R. Taylor, Victoria Janes-Bassett, Gareth K. Phoenix, Ben Keane, Iain P. Hartley, and Jessica A. C. Davies

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-4021-2021-supplement

Data sets

Empirical and modelled car- bon, nitrogen and phosphorus content of plants and soils from Wardlow Hay Cop C. R. Taylor, V. Janes-Bassett, G. K. Phoenix, B. Keane, I. P. Hartley, and J. A. C. Davies https://doi.org/10.5285/98b473c7-3ca9-498d-a851-31152b1f1da7

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Short summary

We used experimental data to model two phosphorus-limited grasslands and investigated their response to nitrogen (N) deposition. Greater uptake of organic P facilitated a positive response to N deposition, stimulating growth and soil carbon storage. Where organic P access was less, N deposition exacerbated P demand and reduced plant C input to the soil. This caused more C to be released into the atmosphere than is taken in, reducing the climate-mitigation capacity of the modelled grassland.