Article pubs.acs.org/est
Divergent Responses of Soil Buffering Capacity to Long-Term N Deposition in Three Typical Tropical Forests with Different Land-Use History Xiankai Lu,† Qinggong Mao,†,∥ Jiangming Mo,*,† Frank S. Gilliam,‡ Guoyi Zhou,† Yiqi Luo,§ Wei Zhang,† and Juan Huang† †
Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou 510650, China ‡ Department of Biological Sciences, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia 25755-2510, United States § Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, United States ∥ University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: Elevated anthropogenic nitrogen (N) deposition has become an important driver of soil acidification at both regional and global scales. It remains unclear, however, how long-term N deposition affects soil buffering capacity in tropical forest ecosystems and in ecosystems of contrasting land-use history. Here, we expand on a long-term N deposition experiment in three tropical forests that vary in land-use history (primary, secondary, and planted forests) in Southern China, with N addition as NH4NO3 of 0, 50, 100, and 150 kg N ha−1 yr−1, respectively. Results showed that all three forests were acid-sensitive ecosystems with poor soil buffering capacity, while the primary forest had higher base saturation and cation exchange capacity than others. However, long-term N addition significantly accelerated soil acidification and decreased soil buffering capacity in the primary forest, but not in the degraded secondary and planted forests. We suggest that ecosystem N status, influenced by different land-use history, is primarily responsible for these divergent responses. N-rich primary forests may be more sensitive to external N inputs than others with low N status, and should be given more attention under global changes in the future, because lack of nutrient cations is irreversible.
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INTRODUCTION
example, because of the rapid expansion in deforestation, many primary forests have been transformed into secondary forests and plantations. Currently, primary forests account for about 36% of total forested area, and are decreasing at the rate of 0.4% annually since 2000.15 The vast majority of losses is in the tropics, where secondary forests are extensive, accounting for about half of total forested area.15 Because of the intensity of these human disturbances, secondary forests and plantations are often seriously degraded, showing loss of soil structure and organic matter and nutrient depletion, compared to primary forests.16,17 Anthropogenic increase in atmospheric N deposition, as an important source of environmental acidification,18−20 can decline soil buffering capacity, and is becoming one main driver of soil acidification in natural and seminatural ecosystems around the world.3−5,21,22 In general, chronically enhanced N deposition increases the availability and thus mobility and
Soil buffering capacity is the ability of soils to resist changes in pH.1 Changes in soil buffering capacity arise from soil characteristics, such as base saturation (BS), cation exchange capacity (CEC), and acid neutralizing capacity (ANC), and are tightly linked with soil acidification.2−5 The primary reaction for buffering in acid soils (defined as soils with pH
