Abstract
Key message
Soil pH, EC, and salinity explain the leaf nutrient concentrations of Prosopis pallida despite the high amount of soil nutrients near the trees.
Abstract
Dryland forests constantly face extreme abiotic conditions, and this affects plant growth and nutrition. We have determined the effects of soil chemical attributes and soil nutrients on the leaf nutrient concentrations of eight Prosopis pallida populations located along a climatic gradient in the North-Peruvian dryland forests. We analyzed the leaf chemical composition (N, P, K, Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Cu, and Zn), as well as soil chemical attributes [texture, pH, salinity (electrical conductivity; EC), and the sodium adsorption ratio (SAR)] and soil nutrient concentrations (the same elements as in the leaves) at 2 m from the base of each tree. The soil and leaf nutrient concentrations were not associated with the climatic gradient and were highly variable within populations. Despite the dry conditions, the soil nutrients were not a limiting resource (eutric conditions), and thus the soil chemical attributes were the main driver of the variation in leaf nutrient concentrations. Interestingly, leaf Mn was correlated with soil and leaf nutrients, as well as with soil chemical attributes, suggesting it can be used as an early indicator of plant nutrition.
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Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the Programa Nacional de Innovación para la Competitividad y Productividad, also known as INNOVATE Peru (Grant number: 146-FINCyT-IB-2013); Fondecyt (Grant number: 163-2018-Fondecyt-BM-IADT-SE); the Spanish MEC projects DIVERBOS (CGL2011-30285-C02-02), ECO-MEDIT (CGL2014-53236-R), ESPECTRAMED (CGL2017-86161-R), and SUNAME (AGL 2017-87074-C2-2-R); and the project Ecología funcional de los bosques andaluces y predicciones sobre sus cambios futuros (For-Change) (UCO-27943), financed by Junta de Andalucía (Spain) and European FEDER funds. Additionally, we thank the biologist Luis Urbina, for his help during field data acquisition, Beatriz Rodriguez (@beart_heart), for the graphical design in Figure 6, and the Servicio Central de Apoyo a la Investigación (SCAI) of the University of Córdoba, for technical support in the chemical analyses.
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PSZ, RV, and RMNC conceived and designed the experiment. PSZ and VB collected and analyzed the data. PSZ, RMNC, VB, and RV wrote the manuscript. GC and NG supervised the research.
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Salazar, P.C., Navarro-Cerrillo, R.M., Grados, N. et al. Leaf nutrients in Prosopis pallida are determined by soil chemical attributes under eutric conditions in a dryland forest. Trees 35, 375–386 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-020-02038-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-020-02038-y