Agile Allocation in the Tundra: A Single Growing Season of Warming Increases Nutrient Availability While Decreasing Fine-Root Length

The majority of plant biomass is located belowground in Arctic ecosystems and plant roots are responsible for the uptake of the nutrients that constrain plant growth in these infertile ecosystems. Despite performing a crucial role connecting primary producers to the soil, roots are relatively understudied in the Arctic and their functional response to a rapidly warming and increasingly variable climate is unknown. We assessed whether one growing season with elevated temperatures would have an impact on nutrient uptake and allocation by applying a warming technique that increased daily air temperatures by 3.2 °C. Destructive sampling was performed at the peak of the growing season to quantify biomass pools of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), root traits, and uptake of a 15N tracer (15NH₄⁺) for the dominant plant species, Arctagrostis latifolia. We found that soil nutrient availability increased with short-term warming, but A. latifolia NH₄⁺ uptake remained unchanged. Fine-root length density and root biomass within the soil profile, however, were both reduced by warming. N allocation patterns across plant tissues were also altered by warming. NH₄ uptake was best fit with a logistic model that captured the spatial relationship between roots and soil (NH₄⁺ uptake expressed per length fine root and NH₄⁺ availability expressed per unit soil volume) rather than a traditional Michaelis–Menten model. Our results indicate that short-term experimental warming can shift plant–soil interactions, suggesting that the tundra’s belowground response to elevated temperatures may be more dynamic than previously recognized.