Nitrogen enrichment of plant communities is known to have big impact on declines in plant diversity and increase of biomass production. Though nitrogen is an important nutrient in the life cycle of a plant it is also problematic when the availability of nitrogen is continually high. When enrichment of nitrogen is continual, the increase in biomass and height from competitive plant species result in shading, which contribute to diversity loss in plant communities. Some nitrogen-favoured plants are long-lived and have the possibility to store seed banks in the ground until conditions are more favourable. Little is known about what role historic fertilization have on plant communities that are being re-fertilized. The aim with this study was to re-fertilize vegetation plots and compare those with vegetation plots that have not been fertilized before. The study site was vegetation plots on a meadow in Strycksele, Västerbotten, Sweden. Some plots had been fertilized from year 1996 until 2000 and scientific studies with re-fertilization started in 2019 and is ongoing. The vegetation response from re-fertilization and newly fertilization was assessed by investigating species diversity and biomass. The results showed no significant difference between re-fertilized and newly fertilized plots in either species diversity or biomass, but there was significant higher biomass in newly fertilized plots than control plots which had not been fertilized 2019-2021. For future studies there would be of high interest to look at potential differences in functional group composition in plant communities that are being re-fertilized compared to newly fertilized plant communities.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-192059 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Gotlén, Hanna |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för ekologi, miljö och geovetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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