Invasive earthworms unlock arctic plant nitrogen limitation

Gesche Blume-Werry, Eveline J. Krab, Johan Olofsson, Maja K. Sundqvist, Maria Väisänen and Jonatan Klaminder ()
Additional contact information
Gesche Blume-Werry: University of Greifswald
Eveline J. Krab: Umeå University
Johan Olofsson: Umeå University
Maja K. Sundqvist: Umeå University
Maria Väisänen: University of Lapland, P. O. Box 122
Jonatan Klaminder: Umeå University

Nature Communications, 2020, vol. 11, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Arctic plant growth is predominantly nitrogen (N) limited. This limitation is generally attributed to slow soil microbial processes due to low temperatures. Here, we show that arctic plant-soil N cycling is also substantially constrained by the lack of larger detritivores (earthworms) able to mineralize and physically translocate litter and soil organic matter. These new functions provided by earthworms increased shrub and grass N concentration in our common garden experiment. Earthworm activity also increased either the height or number of floral shoots, while enhancing fine root production and vegetation greenness in heath and meadow communities to a level that exceeded the inherent differences between these two common arctic plant communities. Moreover, these worming effects on plant N and greening exceeded reported effects of warming, herbivory and nutrient addition, suggesting that human spreading of earthworms may lead to substantial changes in the structure and function of arctic ecosystems.

Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15568-3 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:11:y:2020:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-020-15568-3

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15568-3

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().