Access

News and Views

Nature 447, 781-782 (14 June 2007) | doi:10.1038/447781a; Published online 13 June 2007

Open Innovation Challenges

naturejobs

More science jobs
Post a job for free

Environmental science: Nitrogen impacts on forest carbon

Peter Högberg1

Top

Does the extra nitrogen input from anthropogenic sources mean that more carbon from the atmosphere is being locked up in boreal and temperate forests? 'Yes' is the answer to emerge from the latest analysis.

Since the Industrial Revolution kicked into gear, at around the beginning of the nineteenth century, the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide has increased from 280 to 380 parts per million1. Starting a century later, there has been an even more dramatic increase in the industrial fixation of atmospheric nitrogen into agricultural fertilizers, and in the production of nitrogen oxides from combustion processes in vehicles and industry.

  1. Peter Högberg is in the Department of Forest Ecology and Management, SLU — Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, SE-901 83 Umeå, Sweden.
    Email: peter.hogberg@sek.slu.se

MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS

These links to content published by NPG are automatically generated.

NEWS AND VIEWS

Carbon cycle The roots of the matter

Nature News and Views (14 Jun 2001)

Carbon cycle Nitrogen's carbon bonus

Nature Geoscience News and Views (01 May 2009)

RESEARCH

Temporal changes in allele frequency, genetic variation and inbreeding depression in small populations of the guppy, Poecilia reticulata

Heredity Original Article

Large-scale forest girdling shows that current photosynthesis drives soil respiration

Nature Letters to Editor (14 Jun 2001)

See all 6 matches for Research