Abstract
Atmospheric nitrogen deposition increases forest carbon sequestration across broad parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Slower organic matter decomposition and greater soil carbon accumulation could contribute to this increase in carbon sequestration. We investigated the effects of chronic simulated nitrogen deposition on leaf litter and fine root decomposition at four sugar maple (Acer saccharum)-dominated northern hardwood forests. At these sites, we previously observed that nitrogen additions increased soil organic carbon and altered litter chemistry. We conducted a 3-year decomposition study with litter bags. Litter production of leaves and fine roots were combined with decomposition dynamics to estimate how fine roots and leaf litter contribute to soil organic carbon. We found that nitrogen additions marginally stimulated early-stage decomposition of leaf litter, an effect associated with previously documented changes in litter chemistry. In contrast, nitrogen additions inhibited the later stages of fine root decomposition, which is consistent with observed decreases in lignin-degrading enzyme activities with nitrogen additions at these sites. At the ecosystem scale, slower fine root decomposition led to additional root mass retention (g m−2), and this greater retention of root residues was estimated to explain 5–51% of previously documented carbon accumulation in the surface soil due to nitrogen additions. Our results demonstrated that simulated nitrogen deposition created contrasting effects on the decomposition of leaf litter and fine roots. Although previous nitrogen deposition studies have focused on leaf litter, this work suggests that slower fine root decomposition is a major driver of soil organic carbon accumulation under elevated nitrogen deposition.
Highlights
Human activities currently convert more atmospheric nitrogen (N) gas to biologically active forms of N than all natural processes combined (Gruber and Galloway 2008)
Fine roots had the highest proportion of mass remaining after 3 years (51.29–56.40%), followed by leaf litter deployed on O horizon surface (24.60–25.41%), and leaf litter at O/A interface
We observed that simulated N deposition decreased fine root decomposition rates, but had relatively minor effects on leaf litter decomposition
Summary
Human activities currently convert more atmospheric nitrogen (N) gas to biologically active forms of N than all natural processes combined (Gruber and Galloway 2008). A large portion of the reactive N created by human activity is added to terrestrial ecosystems via atmospheric N deposition, substantially increasing reactive N inputs across wide areas of Europe, North America, and Asia Several chronic experimental N deposition studies in northern temperate forests have observed that long-term N additions increased soil organic C storage (Franklin and others 2003; Hyvonen and others 2008; Pregitzer and others 2008; Frey and others 2014). Given these observations, knowledge of how and why soil C pools respond to added N is crucial for understanding the extent to which terrestrial C cycling is altered by N deposition
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