Fig. 2: Changes in various soil nitrogen cycling parameters along the degradation sequence.
From: Context-dependent effects of grassland degradation on soil nitrogen cycling processes
a Ammonium nitrogen (NH4+-N); (b) nitrate nitrogen (NO3–-N); (c) dissolved inorganic nitrogen (DIN); (d) gross nitrogen mineralization (GNM); (e) microbial immobilization (MIM); (f) gross nitrification (GN). Box shows the interquartile range and whiskers show the data range. The horizontal line in each box indicates the median. The sample sizes in each degradation level for alpine steppe, alpine meadow and alpine swamp meadow are 9, 30 and 6, respectively. Significant difference is shown by different letters (P < 0.05) while ns signifies non-significance (P > 0.05). ND non-degradation, SD slight degradation, MD moderate degradation, HD heavy degradation, AS in alpine steppe, AM alpine meadow, ASM alpine swamp meadow.
