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Controls over Soil Nitrogen Pools in a Semiarid Grassland Under Elevated CO2 and Warming

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Abstract

Long-term responses of terrestrial ecosystems to the combined effects of warming and elevated CO2 (eCO2) will likely be regulated by N availability. The stock of soil N determines availability for organisms, but also influences loss to the atmosphere or groundwater. eCO2 and warming can elicit changes in soil N via direct effects on microbial and plant activity, or indirectly, via soil moisture. Detangling the interplay of direct- and moisture-mediated impacts on soil N and the role of organisms in controlling soil N will improve predictions of ecosystem-level responses. We followed individual soil N pools over two growing seasons in a semiarid temperate grassland, at the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment experiment. We evaluated relationships of N pools with environmental factors and explored the role of plants by assessing plant biomass, plant N, and plant inputs to soil. We also assessed N forms in plots with and without vegetation to remove plant-mediated effects. Our study demonstrated that the effects of warming and eCO2 are highly dependent on individual N form and on year. In this water-constrained grassland, eCO2, warming and their combination appear to impact soil N pools through a complex combination of direct- and moisture-mediated effects. eCO2 decreased NO3 − but had neutral to positive effects on NH4 + and dissolved organic N (DON), particularly in a wet year. Warming increased NO3 − availability due to a combination of indirect drying and direct temperature-driven effects. Warming also increased DON only in vegetated plots, suggesting plant mediation. Our results suggest that impacts of combined eCO2 and warming are not always equivalent for plant and soil pools; although warming can help offset the decrease in NO3 − availability for plants under eCO2, the NO3 − pool in soil is mainly driven by the negative effects of eCO2.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Dan LeCain, David Smith, Erik Hardy, and Matthew Parsons for their technical assistance and Joanne Newcomb, Megan Steinweg, Hannah Munn, Courtney Ellis, Christine Rumsey, and Jennifer Bell, for assistance in the field and in the laboratory. This project was supported by a USDA-CSREES Soil Processes Program (Grant no. 2008-35107-18655), by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Science (BER) through the Terrestrial Ecosystem Science program and the Western Regional Center of the National Institute for Climatic Change Research at Northern Arizona University, by NSF (DEB# 1021559), and by the Australian Research Council (FT100100779).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Botany, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, 82071, USA

    Yolima Carrillo

  2. Department of Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Sydney, Level 4, Biomedical Building-C81, 1 Central Ave, Australian Technology Park, Eveleigh, New South Wales, 2015, Australia

    Yolima Carrillo & Feike A. Dijkstra

  3. Department of Botany and Program in Ecology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, 82071, USA

    Elise Pendall

  4. USDA-ARS Rangeland Resources Research Unit, Crops Research Laboratory, 1701 Center Ave, Fort Collins, Colorado, 80526, USA

    Jack A. Morgan & Dana M. Blumenthal

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  1. Yolima Carrillo
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Correspondence to Yolima Carrillo.

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YC, FAD, EP, JAM, DMB designed the study and performed the research. YC analyzed the data and wrote the paper with contributions from FAD, EP, JAM, and DMB.

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Carrillo, Y., Dijkstra, F.A., Pendall, E. et al. Controls over Soil Nitrogen Pools in a Semiarid Grassland Under Elevated CO2 and Warming. Ecosystems 15, 761–774 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-012-9544-0

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