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Journal article
Plant acclimation to long-term high nitrogen deposition in an N-rich tropical forest
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol.115(20), pp.5187-5192
115
2018
PMCID: PMC5960300
PMID: 29717039
Web of Science ID: WOS:000432120400054
Abstract
Anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition has accelerated terrestrial N cycling at regional and global scales, causing nutrient imbalance in many natural and seminatural ecosystems. How added N affects ecosystems where N is already abundant, and how plants acclimate to chronic N deposition in such circumstances, remains poorly understood. Here, we conducted an experiment employing a decade of N additions to examine ecosystem responses and plant acclimation to added N in an N-rich tropical forest. We found that N additions accelerated soil acidification and reduced biologically available cations (especially Ca and Mg) in soils, but plants maintained foliar nutrient supply at least in part by increasing transpiration while decreasing soil water leaching below the rooting zone. We suggest a hypothesis that cation-deficient plants can adjust to elevated N deposition by increasing transpiration and thereby maintaining nutrient balance. This result suggests that long-term elevated N deposition can alter hydrological cycling in N-rich forest ecosystems.
Details
- Title
- Plant acclimation to long-term high nitrogen deposition in an N-rich tropical forest
- Publication Details
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol.115(20), pp.5187-5192
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences; United States
- Series
- 115
- Copyright
- © 2018 The authors
- Identifiers
- WOS:000432120400054; 99380090345506600
- Academic Unit
- Biology; Hal Marcus College of Science and Engineering
- Language
- English