Abstract
Differences in soil mobility and assimilation costs between organic and inorganic nitrogen (N) compounds would hypothetically induce plant phenotypic plasticity to optimize acquisition of, and performance on, the different N forms. Here we evaluated this hypothesis experimentally and theoretically. We grew Arabidopsis in split-root setups combined with stable isotope labelling to study uptake and distribution of carbon (C) and N from l-glutamine (l-gln) and NO(3) (-) and assessed the effect of the N source on biomass partitioning and carbon use efficiency (CUE). Analyses of stable isotopes showed that 40-48% of C acquired from l-gln resided in plants, contributing 7-8% to total C of both shoots and roots. Plants grown on l-gln exhibited increased root mass fraction and root hair length and a significantly lower N uptake rate per unit root biomass but displayed significantly enhanced CUE. Our data suggests that organic N nutrition is linked to a particular phenotype with extensive growth of roots and root hairs that optimizes for uptake of less mobile N forms. Increased CUE and lower N uptake per unit root growth may be key facets linked to the organic N phenotype.