Rights statement: This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Environmental Pollution. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Environmental Pollution, 247, 2019 DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.01.059
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Final published version
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - What is the most ecologically-meaningful metric of nitrogen deposition?
AU - Payne, R.J.
AU - Campbell, C.
AU - Britton, A.J.
AU - Mitchell, R.J.
AU - Pakeman, R.J.
AU - Jones, L.
AU - Ross, L.C.
AU - Stevens, C.J.
AU - Field, C.
AU - Caporn, S.J.M.
AU - Carroll, J.
AU - Edmondson, J.L.
AU - Carnell, E.J.
AU - Tomlinson, S.
AU - Dore, A.J.
AU - Dise, N.
AU - Dragosits, U.
N1 - This is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Environmental Pollution. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Environmental Pollution, 247, 2019 DOI: 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.01.059
PY - 2019/4/1
Y1 - 2019/4/1
N2 - Nitrogen (N) deposition poses a severe risk to global terrestrial ecosystems, and managing this threat is an important focus for air pollution science and policy. To understand and manage the impacts of N deposition, we need metrics which accurately reflect N deposition pressure on the environment, and are responsive to changes in both N deposition and its impacts over time. In the UK, the metric typically used is a measure of total N deposition over 1–3 years, despite evidence that N accumulates in many ecosystems and impacts from low-level exposure can take considerable time to develop. Improvements in N deposition modelling now allow the development of metrics which incorporate the long-term history of pollution, as well as current exposure. Here we test the potential of alternative N deposition metrics to explain vegetation compositional variability in British semi-natural habitats. We assembled 36 individual datasets representing 48,332 occurrence records in 5479 quadrats from 1683 sites, and used redundancy analyses to test the explanatory power of 33 alternative N metrics based on national pollutant deposition models. We find convincing evidence for N deposition impacts across datasets and habitats, even when accounting for other large-scale drivers of vegetation change. Metrics that incorporate long-term N deposition trajectories consistently explain greater compositional variance than 1–3 year N deposition. There is considerable variability in results across habitats and between similar metrics, but overall we propose that a thirty-year moving window of cumulative deposition is optimal to represent impacts on plant communities for application in science, policy and management. © 2019 Measures of nitrogen deposition which incorporate long-term pollution history explain more spatial variance in plant communities than those which do not. © 2019
AB - Nitrogen (N) deposition poses a severe risk to global terrestrial ecosystems, and managing this threat is an important focus for air pollution science and policy. To understand and manage the impacts of N deposition, we need metrics which accurately reflect N deposition pressure on the environment, and are responsive to changes in both N deposition and its impacts over time. In the UK, the metric typically used is a measure of total N deposition over 1–3 years, despite evidence that N accumulates in many ecosystems and impacts from low-level exposure can take considerable time to develop. Improvements in N deposition modelling now allow the development of metrics which incorporate the long-term history of pollution, as well as current exposure. Here we test the potential of alternative N deposition metrics to explain vegetation compositional variability in British semi-natural habitats. We assembled 36 individual datasets representing 48,332 occurrence records in 5479 quadrats from 1683 sites, and used redundancy analyses to test the explanatory power of 33 alternative N metrics based on national pollutant deposition models. We find convincing evidence for N deposition impacts across datasets and habitats, even when accounting for other large-scale drivers of vegetation change. Metrics that incorporate long-term N deposition trajectories consistently explain greater compositional variance than 1–3 year N deposition. There is considerable variability in results across habitats and between similar metrics, but overall we propose that a thirty-year moving window of cumulative deposition is optimal to represent impacts on plant communities for application in science, policy and management. © 2019 Measures of nitrogen deposition which incorporate long-term pollution history explain more spatial variance in plant communities than those which do not. © 2019
KW - Air pollution
KW - Biodiversity
KW - Community ecology
KW - Cumulative deposition
KW - Environmental change
KW - Nitrogen deposition
KW - Vegetation
U2 - 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.01.059
DO - 10.1016/j.envpol.2019.01.059
M3 - Journal article
VL - 247
SP - 319
EP - 331
JO - Environmental Pollution
JF - Environmental Pollution
SN - 0269-7491
ER -