Data from: Soil types select for plants with matching nutrient‐acquisition and ‐use traits in hyperdiverse and severely nutrient‐impoverished campos rupestres and cerrado in Central Brazil

1. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie the generation of
beta-diversity remains a challenge in ecology. Underground plant
adaptations to environmental gradients have received relatively little
attention. 2. We studied plant nutrient-acquisition strategies and
nutrient-use efficiency at three stages of pedogenesis in infertile soils
from campos rupestres and on less infertile soil from cerrado sensu
stricto in Brazil. All soils support very high plant diversity with high
species turnover between soil types at small spatial scales (meters). We
expected that differences in nutrient–acquisition and –use strategies
would be associated with this high species turnover. With severely
decreasing phosphorus (P) availability, we expected the effectiveness of
arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbioses for plant P acquisition to decrease,
and reliance on non-mycorrhizal strategies (NM) to increase, while
maintaining efficient nutrient-use. 3. Concentrations of total soil P and
nitrogen (N) were greater in soils in cerrado than in those from campos
rupestres, and the more weathered soils from campos rupestres were
severely P– and N–impoverished. The proportion of the root length
colonised by AM fungi was 71% in the soils from the cerrado and campos
rupestres. Conversely, the proportion of species with non-mycorrhizal
P-acquisition strategies such as rhizosheaths was greater in the most
P-impoverished soils. Leaf [P] and [N] were very low and decreased with
decreasing soil [P] and [N]. Leaf N: P ratios suggest P-limitation of
plant productivity in the campos rupestres but N-P co-limitation in the
cerrado. Photosynthetic rates decreased with increasing P-impoverishment,
but photosynthetic P-use efficiency was very high and photosynthetic N-use
efficiency moderately high on all soils. Most species had very high
P-remobilisation efficiency during leaf senescence (>70%), but only
moderate N-remobilisation efficiency (~50%). 4. Synthesis. We observed
very high P-use efficiency and moderately high N-use efficiency in campos
rupestres and cerrado species, consistent with plant productivity being
more strongly limited by P than by N. Our findings demonstrate that
different soil characteristics (nutrient availability and soil texture)
select for species differing in nutrient-acquisition and -use strategies
(especially belowground traits) which is likely key for the very high
species turnover at a very small scale between soil types (i.e.
beta-diversity) in campos rupestres and cerrado.