Legume–grass species influence plant productivity and soil nitrogen during grassland succession in the eastern Tibet Plateau

In recent years, numerous studies have evaluated the effect of plant function diversity on ecosystem functions such as productivity and soil nutrient status. We performed a redundancy analysis (RDA) to examine the relationship between plant functional diversity, productivity and soil nitrogen in a chronosequence of abandoned fields in sub-alpine meadow in the eastern part of the Tibet Plateau, China. We found that along the secondary succession sequence, legume richness and aboveground biomass significantly increased and both were positively correlated with total species richness (S) and aboveground biomass (T-bio). This pattern suggests that legume richness increases community productivity. In addition, we found that total aboveground biomass, legume and grass richness were positively correlated with soil microbial nitrogen (MBN), the ratio of microbial nitrogen to soil total nitrogen (MBN/TN) and the ratio of soil organic carbon and soil total nitrogen (C/N), whereas they were negatively correlated with soil total nitrogen (TN), organic carbon (C_org), and microbial carbon (MBC). Contrary to our predictions grasses such as Stipa grandis, Scirpus tripueter, Koeleria cristata were more closely associated with MBN, MBN/TN than legumes such as Oxytropis ochrocephala, Thermopsis lanceolate and Astragalus polycladus. The late-successional grass Kobresio humilis had a stronger positive correlation with NH₄-N as compared to the legumes and NO₃-N was not associated with any legume species. This suggests that the grasses and legumes have a synergetic positive influence on the ecosystem properties, especially nitrogen. Therefore, in this N-limited, plant community diversity of both legumes and grasses has a strong influence on ecosystem changes during succession.