The Impact of Ant Nesting on Concentration and Allocation of Nitrogen Pool Components in Forest Soils
This study aimed to reveal the process and mechanism of ant colonization affecting soil nitrogen cycling in the neighbour forest of Napahai wetlands.We compared the differences of soil nitrogen components(i.e.,total,alkali-hydrolyzed,nitrate,ammonium,microbial nitrogen)and their allocation(alkali-hydrolyzed nitrogen/total ni-trogen,nitrate nitrogen/total nitrogen,ammonium nitrogen/total nitrogen,microbial biomass nitrogen/total nitrogen)in ant nests and the reference soils in the Abies fabri-Picea asperata community.We also analyzed the effects of ant-induced changes in soil physicochemical environments on accumulation and allocation of nitrogen components.The results indicated that ant colonization significantly affected soil nitrogen accumulation and allocation(P<0.05).The ant nesting increased total nitrogen(2.2 times),nitrate nitrogen(3.5 times),ammonium nitrogen(1.4 times),alka-li-hydrolyzed nitrogen(4.2 times),and microbial biomass nitrogen(1.8 times)compared with reference soils.Fur-thermore,the levels of alkali-hydrolyzed nitrogen/total nitrogen,nitrate nitrogen/total nitrogen,ammonium nitrogen/total nitrogen,microbial biomass nitrogen/total nitrogen in nest soils increased by 1.88,1.47,1.38,1.58 times compared with reference soils,respectively.We observed a significant effect of treatment,soil depth,and their inter-actions on accumulation and allocation of soil nitrogen components(P<0.05).Regression analysis revealed that am-monium and nitrate nitrogen explained 87.29%and 80.84%of the variance in total nitrogen,respectively.Mantel and structural equation indicated that soil porosity,total phosphorus,pH,and were the major drivers for nitrogen ac-cumulation,while soil organic matter,available phosphorus,and available phosphorus were the drivers for nitrogen allocation.This study found that ant colonization regulated nitrogen accumulation and allocation primarily through al-tering soil environmental factors such as soil porosity,acid-alkalinity,carbon,phosphorus and potassium nutrients.Our results may contribute to the understanding of faunal mechanism in regulating nitrogen accumulation and alloca-tion in neighbour forests of alpine wetlands.
ant colonizationnitrogen componentsnitrogen accumulationnitrogen allocationneighbour for-estsNapahai
万方数据
维普
