J Plant Ecol ›› 2026, Vol. 19 ›› Issue (4): rtaf228.DOI: 10.1093/jpe/rtaf228

• Reviews • Previous Articles    

Individual and interactive effects of nitrogen addition and drought on carbon uptake and allocation in terrestrial plants

Chengqian Pan, Junhong Shu, Zhen Zhang, Qinning Jiang, Liehua Tie, Jie Wang, Honglang Duan and Shengnan Ouyang*   

  1. Institute for Forest Resources and Environment of Guizhou, Guizhou Key Laboratory of Forest Cultivation in Plateau Mountain, College of Forestry, Guizhou University, Guiyang 550025, China
    *Corresponding author. E-mail: snouyang@gzu.edu.cn
  • Received:2025-05-06 Accepted:2025-12-20 Published:2026-08-01
  • Supported by:
    This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32360259, 32460379, U24A20431) and Guizhou Provincial Science and Technology Projects (QKHZHYD[2024]044, ZK[2025]ZHONGDIAN070, ZK [2023]YIBAN110).

氮添加和干旱对陆生植物碳吸收和分配的影响

Abstract: The increasing frequency of drought events and elevated nitrogen (N) deposition both affect plant carbon (C) utilization, but whether their individual and interactive effects promote, inhibit or have no effect on C uptake and allocation remains unclear. We conducted a meta-analysis using 1247 observations from 84 published articles to assess how N addition and drought jointly affected plant photosynthesis, biomass allocation and nonstructural carbohydrates (NSC) allocation. Our results showed that N addition overall increased plant net photosynthetic rate (Pn) and biomass accumulation but decreased whole plant total NSC storage. Conversely, drought overall decreased Pn and biomass accumulation while increased whole plant total NSC storage. N addition significantly increased aboveground biomass allocation, whereas drought significantly reduced leaf biomass (LB). Although N addition and drought did not have significant interaction on Pn, biomass allocation and NSC allocation in terrestrial plants, their interaction significantly increased the root biomass of evergreen broadleaf plants, the LB of deciduous broadleaf plants and the root-to-shoot ratio of annual herbs. In conclusion, N addition and drought had opposite effects on C uptake, biomass accumulation and NSC storage in terrestrial plants. The interaction of N addition and drought on biomass allocation was affected by plant functional types. This study enhances our understanding of plant C utilization strategies under multiple environmental changes.

The individual effects of nitrogen addition and drought exerted opposite impacts on plant carbon uptake, biomass accumulation, and non-structural carbohydrate utilization. However, nitrogen addition and drought did not have any significant interaction on plant net photosynthetic rate, biomass allocation, and non-structural carbohydrate allocation.

摘要:
干旱事件发生频率与氮沉降的增加会影响植物碳利用,但二者的单独影响及交互作用如何影响植物碳吸收和分配过程尚不清楚。通过整合84篇文献中1247个观测值,本研究利用meta分析评估了氮添加和干旱对植物的光合作用、生物量分配和非结构性碳水化合物(NSC)分配的影响。结果表明: 1)氮添加整体上增加了植物的净光合速率和生物量积累,但降低了整株植物的非结构性碳水化合物。与之相反,干旱降低了净光合速率和生物量积累,但增加了整株植物NSC含量。 2)氮添加提高了地上部分生物量分配,而干旱则降低了叶片生物量。 3)尽管氮添加和干旱对净光合速率、生物量分配和NSC分无显著交互作用,但两者交互显著增加常绿阔叶植物根系生物量、落叶阔叶植物的叶片生物量以及一年生草本植物的根冠比。综上所述,氮添加和干旱对陆生植物的碳吸收、生物量积累和NSC具有相反的影响方向相反,二者对生物量分配的交互作用受植物功能型的影响。本研究结果加深了学术界对多种环境背景下植物碳利用策略的理解。

关键词: 氮添加, 干旱, 碳分配, 非结构性碳水化合物, meta分析