• Energy Research

The effects of wood ash application on soil microbial processes were investigated in three drained forested peatlands, which differed in nutrient status and time since application. Measured variables included the concentrations of soil elements and phospholipid fatty acids (PLFAs), net nitrogen (N) mineralization, nitrification and denitrification enzyme activity, potential methane (CH(4)) oxidation, CH(4) production and microbial respiration kinetics. Wood ash application had a considerable influence on soil element concentrations. This mirrored a decrease in the majority of the microbial biomarkers by more than one-third in the two oligotrophic peatlands, although the microbial community composition was not altered. The decreases in PLFAs coincided with reduced net ammonification and net N mineralization. Other measured variables did not change systematically as a result of wood ash application. No significant changes in microbial biomass or processes were found in the mesotrophic peatland, possibly because too little time (1 year) had elapsed since the wood ash application. This study suggests that oligotrophic peatlands can be substantially affected by wood ash for a period of at least 4 years after application. However, within 25 years of the wood ash application, the microbial biomass seemed to have recovered or adapted to enhanced element concentrations in the soil.

Abstract The balance of microbial nitrogen (N) transformation processes in sub-arctic terrestrial ecosystems is most likely affected by global change, with potential feedbacks to greenhouse gas emissions and eutrophication. Soil temperature and N availability – their global increases being two of the most pressing global change features - will be prime drivers of N dynamics and microbial community structure, but little is known about their interactive effects in these ecosystems. We utilized geothermally warmed soils from Iceland as a natural experiment for assessing fertilization and warming effects on gross soil N transformation processes. Experimental incubations of these soils at different temperatures coupled with a dual 15N-labelling/-tracing approach and pyrotag transcript-sequencing allowed for the analysis of independent and combined impacts of N fertilization and temperature shifts on gross N mineralisation, nitrification, and ammonium and nitrate immobilisation rates and archaeal ammonia-oxidizing (AOA) communities, being the key ammonia oxidizers in this soil. Gross nitrification in warmed soil was increased in relation to ambient temperature soil and exhibited a higher temperature optimum. Concomitantly, our results revealed a selection of AOA populations adapted to in situ soil temperatures. Phylogenetically distinct populations of actively ammonia-oxidizing archaea exhibited conserved temperature optima. N mineralization and nitrification showed higher sensitivities in response to short-term temperature changes if the soils had been warmed. In part, the influence of short-term temperature changes could however be neutralized by the effects of N fertilization. Long-term N fertilization alone affected only gross N mineralization. However, all gross N transformation rates were significantly altered by the interactive effects of N fertilization and soil warming. We conclude that in order to reliably predict effects of global change on sub-arctic soil N transformation processes we need to consider multiple interactions among global change factors and to take into account the capacity of soil microbial populations to adapt to global change conditions.

AbstractA key part of the uncertainty in terrestrial feedbacks on climate change is related to how and to what extent nitrogen (N) availability constrains the stimulation of terrestrial productivity by elevated CO2 (eCO2), and whether or not this constraint will become stronger over time. We explored the ecosystem‐scale relationship between responses of plant productivity and N acquisition to eCO2 in free‐air CO2 enrichment (FACE) experiments in grassland, cropland and forest ecosystems and found that: (i) in all three ecosystem types, this relationship was positive, linear and strong (r2 = 0.68), but exhibited a negative intercept such that plant N acquisition was decreased by 10% when eCO2 caused neutral or modest changes in productivity. As the ecosystems were markedly N limited, plants with minimal productivity responses to eCO2 likely acquired less N than ambient CO2‐grown counterparts because access was decreased, and not because demand was lower. (ii) Plant N concentration was lower under eCO2, and this decrease was independent of the presence or magnitude of eCO2‐induced productivity enhancement, refuting the long‐held hypothesis that this effect results from growth dilution. (iii) Effects of eCO2 on productivity and N acquisition did not diminish over time, while the typical eCO2‐induced decrease in plant N concentration did. Our results suggest that, at the decennial timescale covered by FACE studies, N limitation of eCO2‐induced terrestrial productivity enhancement is associated with negative effects of eCO2 on plant N acquisition rather than with growth dilution of plant N or processes leading to progressive N limitation.