Chronic Nitrogen Deposition Has a Minor Effect on the Quantity and Quality of Aboveground Litter in a Boreal Forest.

ABSTRACT: There is evidence that anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition enhances carbon (C) sequestration in boreal soils. However, key underlying mechanisms explaining this increase have not been resolved. Two potentially important mechanisms are that aboveground litter production increases, or that litter quality changes in response to N enrichment. As such, our aim was to quantify whether simulated chronic N deposition caused changes in aboveground litter production or quality in a boreal forest. We conducted a long-term (17 years) stand-scale (0.1 ha) forest experiment, consisting of three N addition levels (0, 12.5, and 50 kg N ha-1 yr-1) in northern Sweden, where background N deposition rates are very low. We measured the annual quantity of litter produced for 8 different litter categories, as

SUBMITTER: Maaroufi NI 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5007034 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature