TY - JOUR

T1 - Anthropogenic nitrogen deposition predicts local grassland primary production worldwide

AU - Stevens, Carly J.

AU - Lind, Eric M.

AU - Hautier, Yann

AU - Harpole, W. Stanley

AU - Borer, Elizabeth T.

AU - Hobbie, Sarah

AU - Seabloom, Eric W.

AU - Ladwig, Laura

AU - Bakker, Jonathan D.

AU - Chu, Chengjin

AU - Collins, Scott

AU - Davies, Kendi F.

AU - Firn, Jennifer

AU - Hillebrand, Helmut

AU - Pierre, Kimberly J. La

AU - Macdougall, Andrew

AU - Melbourne, Brett

AU - Mcculley, Rebecca L.

AU - Morgan, John

AU - Orrock, John L.

AU - Prober, Suzanne M.

AU - Risch, Anita C.

AU - Schuetz, Martin

AU - Wragg, Peter D.

PY - 2015/6/1

Y1 - 2015/6/1

N2 - Humans dominate many important Earth system processes including the nitrogen (N) cycle. Atmospheric N deposition affects fundamental processes such as carbon cycling, climate regulation, and biodiversity, and could result in changes to fundamental Earth system processes such as primary production. Both modelling and experimentation have suggested a role for anthropogenically altered N deposition in increasing productivity, nevertheless, current understanding of the relative strength of N deposition with respect to other controls on production such as edaphic conditions and climate is limited. Here we use an international multiscale data set to show that atmospheric N deposition is positively correlated to aboveground net primary production (ANPP) observed at the 1-m2 level across a wide range of herbaceous ecosystems. N deposition was a better predictor than climatic drivers and local soil conditions, explaining 16% of observed variation in ANPP globally with an increase of 1 kg N·ha−1·yr−1 increasing ANPP by 3%. Soil pH explained 8% of observed variation in ANPP while climatic drivers showed no significant relationship. Our results illustrate that the incorporation of global N deposition patterns in Earth system models are likely to substantially improve estimates of primary production in herbaceous systems. In herbaceous systems across the world, humans appear to be partially driving local ANPP through impacts on the N cycle.

AB - Humans dominate many important Earth system processes including the nitrogen (N) cycle. Atmospheric N deposition affects fundamental processes such as carbon cycling, climate regulation, and biodiversity, and could result in changes to fundamental Earth system processes such as primary production. Both modelling and experimentation have suggested a role for anthropogenically altered N deposition in increasing productivity, nevertheless, current understanding of the relative strength of N deposition with respect to other controls on production such as edaphic conditions and climate is limited. Here we use an international multiscale data set to show that atmospheric N deposition is positively correlated to aboveground net primary production (ANPP) observed at the 1-m2 level across a wide range of herbaceous ecosystems. N deposition was a better predictor than climatic drivers and local soil conditions, explaining 16% of observed variation in ANPP globally with an increase of 1 kg N·ha−1·yr−1 increasing ANPP by 3%. Soil pH explained 8% of observed variation in ANPP while climatic drivers showed no significant relationship. Our results illustrate that the incorporation of global N deposition patterns in Earth system models are likely to substantially improve estimates of primary production in herbaceous systems. In herbaceous systems across the world, humans appear to be partially driving local ANPP through impacts on the N cycle.

KW - Anthropocene

KW - Bayesian analysis

KW - hierarchical regression

KW - Nitrogen deposition

KW - Nutrient Network

KW - primary production

U2 - 10.1890/14-1902.1

DO - 10.1890/14-1902.1

M3 - Journal article

VL - 96

SP - 1459

EP - 1465

JO - Ecology

JF - Ecology

SN - 0012-9658

IS - 6

ER -