Dataset and analyses for publication entitled: “Acclimation of the nitrogen cycle to changes in precipitation”

This dataset contains data and analysis code for the paper entitled “Acclimation of the nitrogen cycle to changes in precipitation" by Currier et al. As the frequency of precipitation extremes are expected to increase, especially in arid regions, we asked how prolonged shifts in water availability facilitate acclimation of the N cycle in a semiarid grassland. Using natural abundances of stable nitrogen isotopes for dominant plants and soils and rainfall manipulation experiments, we tested the hypothesis that N cycling will interact with water availability further amplifying the openness of the N cycle through time. For the dominant plant species, we found the relationship for N availability vs. ambient annual precipitation to be significantly positive, contrary to global spatial models. We also considered the temporal dynamics of our experiments, which imposed directional rainfall manipulations in duration ranging from 5 to 14 years. The slopes of these relationships decreased (became less positive) with more time since the onset of the directional precipitation extremes. These data and metadata supplement long-term foliar and soil isotope data from the Jornada LTER (Dataset ID: knb-lter-jrn.210586001) with a large spatial dataset from NEON data package DP1.10026.001 and Craine et al. 2018 (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v2k2607).

该数据集包含Currier等人题为《氮循环对降水变化的适应》一文的相关数据及分析代码。鉴于极端降水事件的发生频率预计将上升，尤其在干旱地区，我们探讨了水分有效性的长期变化如何促进半干旱草原（semiarid grassland）氮循环的适应过程。通过分析优势植物与土壤中稳定氮同位素（stable nitrogen isotopes）的自然丰度，并结合降雨操控实验（rainfall manipulation experiments），我们验证了以下假设：氮循环会与水分有效性发生相互作用，随时间推移进一步扩大氮循环的开放性。对于优势植物物种，我们发现氮有效性与环境年降水量之间存在显著正相关关系，这与全球空间模型的预测相反。我们还分析了实验的时间动态特征：方向降雨操控的持续时间为5至14年，而上述关系的斜率随极端定向降水开始后的时间延长而降低（即正相关性减弱）。这些数据和元数据补充了Jornada长期生态研究站（Long-Term Ecological Research, LTER）的长期叶面与土壤同位素数据（数据集ID：knb-lter-jrn.210586001），以及NEON数据包DP1.10026.001和Craine等人2018年发表的数据集（https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v2k2607）。