How does climate change and dry soil contribute to forest stress? This is what a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences hopes to address as a large international team of researchers investigated the impact of climate change on soil nitrogen levels. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, legislators, and the public better understand the negative impacts of climate change on the environment and the steps that can be taken to mitigate them.
For the study, the researchers conducted obtained data over six years from an experimental warming in the Qingyuan Forest CERN (National Observation and Research Station, Chinese Academy of Sciences). During the study, the researchers warmed the soil in designated plots by 2 degrees Celsius (36 degrees Fahrenheit) while monitoring changes in nitrogen emissions, and specifically nitric oxide and nitrous oxide, which are air pollutants and powerful greenhouse gases, respectively.
The goal of the study was to ascertain the accuracy of climate change models, specifically regarding ecosystems losing nitrogen. In the end, the researchers were surprised to discover that nitric oxide and nitrous oxide fell by 19 percent and 16 percent respectively, which is in stark contrast to their hypothesis that nitrogen levels would rise.
“These results flip our assumptions,” said Dr. Pete Homyak, who is an associate professor of environmental sciences at UC Riverside and a co-author on the study. “We’ve always thought warming would accelerate microbial processes and release more nitrogen. That can be true in a lab under controlled conditions. But in the field, especially under dry conditions, the microbes slow down because the soils dry out.”
What new insight into climate change and forest stress will researchers make in the coming years and decades? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!
As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!
Sources: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, EurekAlert!
Featured Image: Qingyuan County forest research site. (Credit: Kai Huang/UCR)