Arbuscular mycorrhiza has little influence on N2O potential emissions compared to plant diversity in experimental...

Denitrification is an ecosystem process linked to ongoing climate change, because it releases nitrous oxide (N2O) into the atmosphere. To date, the literature covers mostly how aboveground (i.e. plant community structure) and belowground (i.e. plant-associated soil microbes) biota separately influence denitrification in isolation of each other. We here present a mesocosm experiment where we combine a manipulation of belowground biota (i.e. addition of Rhizophagus irregularis propagules to the indigenous mycorrhizal community) with a realized gradient in plant diversity. We used a seed mix containing plant species representative of mesophytic European grasslands and by stochastic differences in species establishment across the sixteen replicates per treatment level a spontaneously established gradient in plant diversity. We address mycorrhizal-induced and plant-diversity mediated changes on denitrification potential parameters and how these differ from the existing literature that studies them independently of each other. We show that unlike denitrification potential, N2O potential emissions do not change with mycorrhiza and depend instead on realized plant diversity. By linking mycorrhizal ecology to an N-cycling process, we present a comprehensive assessment of terrestrial denitrification dynamics when diverse plants co-occur.