Abstract
Urbanization substantially increases nitrogen (N) inputs and hydrologic losses relative to wildland ecosystems, although the fate of N additions to lawns and remnant grasslands remains contested. In montane semi-arid ecosystems, N cycling is often closely coupled to snowmelt (the dominant period of infiltration) and snow cover, which impact soil temperature and moisture. Here, we compared soil N dynamics between a fertilized and irrigated urban lawn and nearby riparian meadow in Salt Lake City, Utah during a snow manipulation experiment. Snow removal increased freeze/thaw events but did not affect N pools, microbial biomass, denitrification potential, or soil oxygen (O2). Mineral N was similar between sites despite lawn fertilization, but dissolved organic N (DON) was four-fold greater (2.1 ± 0.1 mg N l−1) in lawn soil water. Infiltration was lower in the lawn subsoil, and leaching losses (modeled with Hydrus) were small at both sites (< 2 kg N ha−1 y−1) despite substantial lawn fertilization. Lawn soil O2 fluctuated between 20.9 and 1.6 % following snowmelt and irrigation, but remained near 20 % in the meadow; the lawn had more reducing microsites as indicated by iron speciation. Post-snowmelt potential denitrification was six-fold greater in the lawn than the meadow. Lawns can potentially provide hotspots of denitrification in a semi-arid landscape that exceed some natural riparian ecosystems, whereas DON may represent an increasingly important form of N loss from lawns.
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Acknowledgments
We thank Sue Pope, Lorenzo Lopez, and Marty Huebner from the University of Utah landscape staff for supporting our work on campus. We gratefully acknowledge field and lab assistance from Jillian Turner, Simone Jackson, Kendalynn Morris, Dave Eiriksson, Suvankar Chakraborty, Harrison Quinn, and Caitlin Szymanski. This research was supported by NSF EPSCoR grant IIA 1208732 awarded to Utah State University as part of the State of Utah Research Infrastructure Improvement Award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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Hall, S.J., Baker, M.A., Jones, S.B. et al. Contrasting soil nitrogen dynamics across a montane meadow and urban lawn in a semi-arid watershed. Urban Ecosyst 19, 1083–1101 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-016-0538-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11252-016-0538-0