Recently, Fang Jingyun, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shen Haihua, an associate researcher of the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and their collaborators revealed the effects of long-term nitrogen addition on the carbon cycle of aging boreal forests
Chinese Academy of Sciences Since the Industrial Revolution, the burning of fossil fuels and the application of agricultural fertilizers have led to an increase in atmospheric nitrogen deposition.
The carbon balance of the ecosystem depends on the balance between net primary productivity and carbon emissions from heterotrophic respiration.
To this end, the research team used the long-term field control experiment platform, based on the continuous observation data of tree growth and soil heterotrophic respiration from 2012 to 2020, to study the response of the carbon flux of the northern forest aging forest ecosystem to different nitrogen addition levels and over time.
Studies have shown that nitrogen addition promotes net primary productivity, and its effect size decreases with the level of nitrogen addition; the response of soil heterotrophic respiration carbon emissions to different nitrogen addition levels is non-linear, low-level nitrogen addition has a promoting effect, while medium-nitrogen and high-nitrogen Addition will have a suppressive effect
The researchers also found that low-level nitrogen addition has similar effects on net primary productivity and soil heterotrophic respiration carbon emissions, resulting in low-level nitrogen addition having no effect on net ecosystem productivity, while medium- and high-nitrogen additions promote ecosystem carbon Sink
It is worth mentioning that, unlike the traditional view that "nitrogen deposition promotes carbon sinks in northern forest ecosystems", the research results show that the contribution of background nitrogen deposition to carbon sinks in northern forest ecosystems is weak
The research was funded by the Basic Science Center Project of the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National Key Basic Research Development Planning Project, and the Frontier Science Key Research Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
Related paper information: https://doi.
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