Journal
ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND POLLUTION RESEARCH
Volume 24, Issue 34, Pages 26160-26171Publisher
SPRINGER HEIDELBERG
DOI: 10.1007/s11356-017-8852-5
Keywords
Air pollution; Carbon use efficiency (CUE); Carbon and nitrogen interaction; CO2 emission; Fertilization experiment; Global change; Soil nutrients; Spatial-temporal variability
Categories
Funding
- project ECO-SCALE through the Regional Administration of Sardinia, RAS, L.R. Scientific Research and Technological Innovation in Sardinia
- Euro-Mediterranean Centre on Climate Change (CMCC)
- Department of Biogeography and Global Change, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), Madrid, Spain [2014-1-IT02-KA103-000341]
- Spanish Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad [BIOMOD CGL-2013-44661-R]
- Comunidad de Madrid [S2013/MAE-2719]
- Fundacao para a Ciencia e Tecnologia (FCT)
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Increased atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition is known to alter ecosystem carbon source-sink dynamics through changes in soil CO2 fluxes. However, a limited number of experiments have been conducted to assess the effects of realistic N deposition in the Mediterranean Basin, and none of them have explored the effects of N addition on soil respiration (R-s). To fill this gap, we assessed the effects of N supply on Rs dynamics in the following two Mediterranean sites: Capo Caccia (Italy), where 30 kg ha(-1) year(-1) was supplied for 3 years, and El Regajal (Spain), where plots were treated with 10, 20, or 50 kg N ha(-1) year(-1) for 8 years. Results show a complex, non-linear response of soil respiration (R-s) to N additions with Rs overall increasing at Capo Caccia and decreasing at El Regajal. This suggests that the response of Rs to N addition depends on dose and duration of N supply, and the existence of a threshold above which the N introduced in the ecosystem can affect the ecosystem's functioning. Soil cover and seasonality of precipitations also play a key role in determining the effects of N on Rs as shown by the different responses observed across seasons and in bare soil vs. the soil under canopy of the dominant species. These results show how increasing rates of N addition may influence soil C dynamics in semiarid ecosystems in the Mediterranean Basin and represent a valuable contribution for the understanding and the protection of Mediterranean ecosystems.
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