Nitrogen deposition shows no consistent negative nor positive effect on the response of forest productivity to drought across European FLUXNET forest sites

Atmospheric reactive nitrogen (N) deposition is an important driver of carbon (C) sequestration in forest ecosystems. Previous studies have focused on N-C interactions in various ecosystems; however, relatively little is known about the impact of N deposition on ecosystem C cycling during climate extremes such as droughts. With the occurrence and severity of droughts likely to be exacerbated by climate change, N deposition—drought interactions remain one of the key uncertainties in process-based models to date. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of N deposition-drought dynamics on gross primary production (GPP) in European forest ecosystems. To do so, different soil water availability indicators (Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), soil volumetric water) and GPP measurements from European FLUXNET forest sites were used to quantify the response of forest GPP to drought. The computed drought responses of the forest GPP to drought were linked to modelled N deposition estimates for varying edaphic, physiological, and climatic conditions. Our result showed a differential response of forest ecosystems to the drought indicators. Although all FLUXNET forest sites showed a coherent dependence of GPP on N deposition, no consistent or significant N deposition effect on the response of forest GPP to drought could be isolated. The mean response of forest GPP to drought could be predicted for forests with Pinus trees as dominant species (R2 = 0.85, RMSE = 8.1). After extracting the influence of the most prominent parameters (mean annual temperature and precipitation, forest age), however, the variability remained too large to significantly substantiate hypothesized N deposition effects. These results suggest that, while N deposition clearly affects forest productivity, N deposition is not a major nor consistent driver of forest productivity responses to drought in European forest ecosystems

COMET: a Lagrangian transport model for greenhouse gas emission estimation ? forward model technique and performance for methane

International audienceThe Lagrangian transport model COMET has been developed to evaluate emission estimates based on atmospheric concentration observations. This paper describes the model and its application in modelling the methane concentrations at the European stations Cabauw and Macehead. The COMET model captures in most cases both synoptic and diurnal variations of the concentrations as a function of time and in absolute size quite well. The explained variability by COMET of the mixed layer concentration for Cabauw varies from 50% to 84%; for all hourly observations in 2002 the explained variability is 71% with a RMSE of 112 ppb. The explained variability for Macehead is 48%. The most important model parameters were tested for their influence on model performance, but in general the model is not very sensitive to variations within acceptable limits. For a regionally and locally polluted continental site the COMET model shows only a small bias and a moderate random error, and therefore is considered to capture the influence of the sources on the concentration variations quite well. It is therefore concluded that inverse methods and more specifically the COMET model is suitable to be applied in deriving independent estimates of greenhouse gas emissions using Source-Receptor relationships

Global assessment of nitrogen deposition effects on terrestrial plant diversity : a synthesis

Atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition is it recognized threat to plant diversity ill temperate and northern parts of Europe and North America. This paper assesses evidence from field experiments for N deposition effects and thresholds for terrestrial plant diversity protection across a latitudinal range of main categories of ecosystems. from arctic and boreal systems to tropical forests. Current thinking on the mechanisms of N deposition effects on plant diversity, the global distribution of G200 ecoregions, and current and future (2030) estimates of atmospheric N-deposition rates are then used to identify the risks to plant diversity in all major ecosystem types now and in the future. This synthesis paper clearly shows that N accumulation is the main driver of changes to species composition across the whole range of different ecosystem types by driving the competitive interactions that lead to composition change and/or making conditions unfavorable for some species. Other effects such its direct toxicity of nitrogen gases and aerosols long-term negative effects of increased ammonium and ammonia availability, soil-mediated effects of acidification, and secondary stress and disturbance are more ecosystem, and site-specific and often play a supporting role. N deposition effects in mediterranean ecosystems have now been identified, leading to a first estimate of an effect threshold. Importantly, ecosystems thought of as not N limited, such as tropical and subtropical systems, may be more vulnerable in the regeneration phase. in situations where heterogeneity in N availability is reduced by atmospheric N deposition, on sandy soils, or in montane areas. Critical loads are effect thresholds for N deposition. and the critical load concept has helped European governments make progress toward reducing N loads on sensitive ecosystems. More needs to be done in Europe and North America. especially for the more sensitive ecosystem types. including several ecosystems of high conservation importance. The results of this assessment Show that the Vulnerable regions outside Europe and North America which have not received enough attention are ecoregions in eastern and Southern Asia (China, India), an important part of the mediterranean ecoregion (California, southern Europe). and in the coming decades several subtropical and tropical parts of Latin America and Africa. Reductions in plant diversity by increased atmospheric N deposition may be more widespread than first thought, and more targeted Studies are required in low background areas, especially in the G200 ecoregions

Soil nitrogen supply of peat grasslands estimated by degree days and soil organic matter content

Accurate estimates of the quantity and rate of soil nitrogen supply (SNS) are essential to increase soil and farm N use efficiencies, in particular for soils high in organic matter. The objective of this work was to enhance the empirical understanding of the SNS of dairy grasslands on peat soils, using soil properties and weather variables. Data were collected from studies on herbage N uptake carried out between 1992 and 2017 in the western peat district of the Netherlands. For the period between March to mid October, SNS was estimated from the sum of mean growing season daily temperatures, soil organic matter (SOM) and applied calcium ammonium nitrate (CAN) N with a residual standard error of 25–27 kg ha−1. Each °C growing season temperature sum affected SNS by 78–90 g ha−1 and each g SOM per 100 g dry soil affected SNS by 3.6–3.9 kg ha−1, respectively. SNS was equally estimated for conditions with and without CAN fertilisation. Validation with data from independent field trials showed similar impacts of SOM and growing season temperature sum on SNS. The error of prediction of the presented models, however, was still too large for direct on-farm application and led to underestimations for a specific site. Nevertheless, the obtained models allow for an increased understanding of soil and farm N balances. The models can therefore be used for improved temporal and spatial SNS-adapted farming practice advice, which can potentially lead to reduced soil and farm N surpluses.</p

How can we possibly resolve the planet's nitrogen dilemma?

Nitrogen is the most crucial element in the production of nutritious feeds and foods. The production of reactive nitrogen by means of fossil fuel has thus far been able to guarantee the protein supply for the world population. Yet, the production and massive use of fertilizer nitrogen constitute a major threat in terms of environmental health and sustainability. It is crucial to promote consumer acceptance and awareness towards proteins produced by highly effective microorganisms, and their potential to replace proteins obtained with poor nitrogen efficiencies from plants and animals. The fact that reactive fertilizer nitrogen, produced by the Haber Bosch process, consumes a significant amount of fossil fuel worldwide is of concern. Moreover, recently, the prices of fossil fuels have increased the cost of reactive nitrogen by a factor of 3 to 5 times, while international policies are fostering the transition towards a more sustainable agro-ecology by reducing mineral fertilizers inputs and increasing organic farming. The combination of these pressures and challenges opens opportunities to use the reactive nitrogen nutrient more carefully. Time has come to effectively recover used nitrogen from secondary resources and to upgrade it to a legal status of fertilizer. Organic nitrogen is a slow-release fertilizer, it has a factor of 2.5 or higher economic value per unit nitrogen as fertilizer and thus adequate technologies to produce it, for instance by implementing photobiological processes, are promising. Finally, it appears wise to start the integration in our overall feed and food supply chains of the exceptional potential of biological nitrogen fixation. Nitrogen produced by the nitrogenase enzyme, either in the soil or in novel biotechnology reactor systems, deserves to have a ‘renaissance’ in the context of planetary governance in general and the increasing number of people who desire to be fed in a sustainable way in particular

Trends in Metal Oxide Stability for Nanorods, Nanotubes, and Surfaces

The formation energies of nanostructures play an important role in determining their properties, including the catalytic activity. For the case of 15 different rutile and 8 different perovskite metal oxides, we find that the density functional theory (DFT) calculated formation energies of (2,2) nanorods, (3,3) nanotubes, and the (110) and (100) surfaces may be described semi-quantitatively by the fraction of metal--oxygen bonds broken and the bonding band centers in the bulk metal oxide

An evaluation of IASI-NH\u3csub\u3e3\u3c/sub\u3e with ground-based Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy measurements

Global distributions of atmospheric ammonia (NH3) measured with satellite instruments such as the Infrared Atmospheric Sounding Interferometer (IASI) contain valuable information on NH3 concentrations and variability in regions not yet covered by ground-based instruments. Due to their large spatial coverage and (bi-)daily overpasses, the satellite observations have the potential to increase our knowledge of the distribution of NH3 emissions and associated seasonal cycles. However the observations remain poorly validated, with only a handful of available studies often using only surface measurements without any vertical information. In this study, we present the first validation of the IASI-NH3 product using ground-based Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) observations. Using a recently developed consistent retrieval strategy, NH3 concentration profiles have been retrieved using observations from nine Network for the Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change (NDACC) stations around the world between 2008 and 2015. We demonstrate the importance of strict spatio-temporal collocation criteria for the comparison. Large differences in the regression results are observed for changing intervals of spatial criteria, mostly due to terrain characteristics and the short lifetime of NH3 in the atmosphere. The seasonal variations of both datasets are consistent for most sites. Correlations are found to be high at sites in areas with considerable NH3 levels, whereas correlations are lower at sites with low atmospheric NH3 levels close to the detection limit of the IASI instrument. A combination of the observations from all sites (Nobs = 547) give a mean relative difference of −32.4 ± (56.3) %, a correlation r of 0.8 with a slope of 0.73. These results give an improved estimate of the IASI-NH3 product performance compared to the previous upper-bound estimates (−50 to +100 %)

Governing processes for reactive nitrogen compounds in the European atmosphere

Peer reviewe

c-Myc overexpression sensitises colon cancer cells to camptothecin-induced apoptosis

The proto-oncogene c-Myc is overexpressed in 70% of colorectal tumours and can modulate proliferation and apoptosis after cytotoxic insult. Using an isogenic cell system, we demonstrate that c-Myc overexpression in colon carcinoma LoVo cells resulted in sensitisation to camptothecin-induced apoptosis, thus identifying c-Myc as a potential marker predicting response of colorectal tumour cells to camptothecin. Both camptothecin exposure and c-Myc overexpression in LoVo cells resulted in elevation of p53 protein levels, suggesting a role of p53 in the c-Myc-imposed sensitisation to the apoptotic effects of camptothecin. This was confirmed by the ability of PFT-alpha, a specific inhibitor of p53, to attenuate camptothecin-induced apoptosis. p53 can induce the expression of p21(Waf1/Cip1), an antiproliferative protein that can facilitate DNA repair and drug resistance. Importantly, although camptothecin treatment markedly increased p21(Waf1/Cip1) levels in parental LoVo cells, this effect was abrogated in c-Myc-overexpressing derivatives. Targeted inactivation of p21(Waf1/Cip1) in HCT116 colon cancer cells resulted in significantly increased levels of apoptosis following treatment with camptothecin, demonstrating the importance of p21(Waf1/Cip1) in the response to this agent. Finally, cDNA microarray analysis was used to identify genes that are modulated in expression by c-Myc upregulation that could serve as additional markers predicting response to camptothecin. Thirty-four sequences were altered in expression over four-fold in two isogenic c-Myc-overexpressing clones compared to parental LoVo cells. Moreover, the expression of 10 of these genes was confirmed to be significantly correlated with response to camptothecin in a panel of 30 colorectal cancer cell lines