Interactive Effects of Soil Water, Nutrients and Clonal Fragmentation on Root Growth of Xerophilic Plant Stipa breviflora

Ruyue Fan, Shijie Lv, Yong Ding and Qingfeng Li ()
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Ruyue Fan: College of Grassland, Resources and Environment, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China
Shijie Lv: College of Science, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China
Yong Ding: Institute of Grassland Research, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot 010010, China
Qingfeng Li: College of Grassland, Resources and Environment, Inner Mongolia Agricultural University, Hohhot 010018, China

Agriculture, 2022, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-12

Abstract: Root traits are often used to predict the ecological adaptations of plants. Water and nutrient availability together with fragment size are likely to affect the adaptative capacity of Stipa breviflora and help plants spread and explore new sites, while the effects of water, nutrients and fragment size on S. breviflora ’s root traits have rarely been studied in combination. Here, a standard Taguchi L 8 (2 7 ) array design was conducted with four single factors, water (W), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P) and fragment size (C), and three interactions (N × P, N × W and P × W). Each of the four factors had two levels (1 = low level and 2 = high level). This study found that water was the most important contributor influencing S. breviflora root growth, followed by N and P, respectively. W2 and P2 additions both promoted root growth, whereas N2 addition significantly inhibited root growth. Though C2 had higher values of total root length, surface area, volume, number of tips and biomass than C1, its root growth rate was lower than C1, and its small size fragment had a higher capacity of root growth under low N addition. These findings suggest that clonal fragmentation may enhance the adaptation of S. breviflora in low nitrogen habitats, and that nitrogen is one of the limiting factors influencing their growth and distribution.

Keywords: root traits; root biomass; acquisition-conservation resource use strategy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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