Retention of deposited ammonium and nitrate and its impact on the global forest carbon sink

Geshere Abdisa Gurmesa; Ang Wang; Shanlong Li; Shushi Peng; Wim de Vries; Per Gundersen; Philippe Ciais; Oliver L Phillips; Erik A Hobbie; Weixing Zhu; Knute Nadelhoffer; Yi Xi; Edith Bai; Tao Sun; Dexiang Chen; Wenjun Zhou; Yiping Zhang; Yingrong Guo; Jiaojun Zhu; Lei Duan; Dejun Li; Keisuke Koba; Enzai Du; Guoyi Zhou; Xingguo Han; Shijie Han; Yunting Fang

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-28345-1

Retention of deposited ammonium and nitrate and its impact on the global forest carbon sink

Nat Commun. 2022 Feb 15;13(1):880. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-28345-1.

Authors

Geshere Abdisa Gurmesa^#¹, Ang Wang^#^{1

2

3}, Shanlong Li^{1

4}, Shushi Peng⁵, Wim de Vries⁶, Per Gundersen⁷, Philippe Ciais^{8

9}, Oliver L Phillips¹⁰, Erik A Hobbie¹¹, Weixing Zhu¹², Knute Nadelhoffer¹³, Yi Xi¹⁴, Edith Bai¹⁵, Tao Sun¹, Dexiang Chen¹⁶, Wenjun Zhou¹⁷, Yiping Zhang¹⁷, Yingrong Guo¹⁸, Jiaojun Zhu^{1

2}, Lei Duan¹⁹, Dejun Li²⁰, Keisuke Koba²¹, Enzai Du²², Guoyi Zhou²³, Xingguo Han²⁴, Shijie Han²⁵, Yunting Fang^{26

27

28}

Affiliations

¹ CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China.
² Qingyuan Forest CERN, Chinese Academy of Science, Shenyang, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Isotope Techniques and Applications, Shenyang, China.
⁴ Institute of Agricultural Resource and Environment, Jilin Academy of Agricultural Science, Changchun, China.
⁵ Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China. speng@pku.edu.cn.
⁶ Wageningen University and Research, Environmental Systems Analysis Group, Wageningen, the Netherlands.
⁷ Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.
⁸ LSCE (CEA CNRS UVSQ UPSaclay) Centre d'Etudes Orme des Merisiers, Gif sur Yvette, France.
⁹ Climate and Atmosphere Research Center (CARE-C), The Cyprus Institute, Nicosia, Cyprus.
¹⁰ School of Geography, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
¹¹ Earth Systems Research Center, Morse Hall, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA.
¹² Department of Biological Sciences, Binghamton University, The State University of New York, Binghamton, NY, USA.
¹³ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
¹⁴ Sino-French Institute for Earth System Science, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing, China.
¹⁵ School of Geographical Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China.
¹⁶ Institute of Tropical Forestry, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Guangzhou, China.
¹⁷ CAS Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Mengla, China.
¹⁸ Jiangxi Provincial Bureau of Forestry, Nanchang, Jiangxi, China.
¹⁹ State Key Laboratory of Environmental Simulation and Pollution Control, School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China.
²⁰ Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, China.
²¹ Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Shiga, Japan.
²² State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, and Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
²³ Institute of Ecology and School of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing, China.
²⁴ State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
²⁵ School of Life Sciences, Henan University, Kaifeng, China.
²⁶ CAS Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang, China. fangyt@iae.ac.cn.
²⁷ Qingyuan Forest CERN, Chinese Academy of Science, Shenyang, China. fangyt@iae.ac.cn.
²⁸ Key Laboratory of Isotope Techniques and Applications, Shenyang, China. fangyt@iae.ac.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

The impacts of enhanced nitrogen (N) deposition on the global forest carbon (C) sink and other ecosystem services may depend on whether N is deposited in reduced (mainly as ammonium) or oxidized forms (mainly as nitrate) and the subsequent fate of each. However, the fates of the two key reactive N forms and their contributions to forest C sinks are unclear. Here, we analyze results from 13 ecosystem-scale paired ¹⁵N-labelling experiments in temperate, subtropical, and tropical forests. Results show that total ecosystem N retention is similar for ammonium and nitrate, but plants take up more labelled nitrate ([Formula: see text]%) ([Formula: see text]) than ammonium ([Formula: see text]%) while soils retain more ammonium ([Formula: see text]%) than nitrate ([Formula: see text]%). We estimate that the N deposition-induced C sink in forests in the 2010s is [Formula: see text] Pg C yr^-1, higher than previous estimates because of a larger role for oxidized N and greater rates of global N deposition.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Ammonium Compounds / analysis*
Carbon Sequestration / physiology*
Environment
Environmental Restoration and Remediation*
Forests*
Nitrates / analysis*
Nitrogen Isotopes / chemistry
Nitrogen Oxides / analysis
Soil / chemistry
Trees / metabolism*

Substances

Ammonium Compounds
Nitrates
Nitrogen Isotopes
Nitrogen Oxides
Soil

Associated data

Dryad/10.5061/dryad.cfxpnvx3d