Author(s)

C. Cruz, T. Dias, S. Matos, A. Tavares, D. Neto & M.A. Martins-Loucao

Abstract

Nitrogen availability and plant cover: the importance of nitrogen pools C. Cruz, T. Dias, S. Matos, A. Tavares, D. Neto & M. A. Martins-Lou@o Centro de Ecologia e Biologia Vegetal - Dep. Biologia Vegetal, Faculdade de Cizncias da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal Abstract Despite its great importance to plants' response to changing environments, the soil environment has received much less attention than that above ground. In particular, patterns of nitrogen availability in the ecosystem have been studied in only a few locations and circumstances. The forms of nitrogen most commonly used by plants are nitrate (NO3-) and ammonium (NH~), which differ in terms of mobility and assimilation by the plant. Soils differ in their concentrations of NO< and NH~', which also change in response to environmental conditions: temperature, water availability, soil microbial community or successional stages, ecosystem recovery, etc. In this work we first determined field nitrogen availability (NO; and N&' concen

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