Grazing-induced reduction of natural nitrous oxide release from continental steppe

Abstract

Atmospheric concentrations of the greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N₂O) have increased significantly since pre-industrial times owing to anthropogenic perturbation of the global nitrogen cycle^1,2, with animal production being one of the main contributors³. Grasslands cover about 20 per cent of the temperate land surface of the Earth and are widely used as pasture. It has been suggested that high animal stocking rates and the resulting elevated nitrogen input increase N₂O emissions^4,5,6,7. Internationally agreed methods to upscale the effect of increased livestock numbers on N₂O emissions are based directly on per capita nitrogen inputs⁸. However, measurements of grassland N₂O fluxes are often performed over short time periods⁹, with low time resolution and mostly during the growing season. In consequence, our understanding of the daily and seasonal dynamics of grassland N₂O fluxes remains limited. Here we report year-round N₂O flux measurements with high and low temporal resolution at ten steppe grassland sites in Inner Mongolia, China. We show that short-lived pulses of N₂O emission during spring thaw dominate the annual N₂O budget at our study sites. The N₂O emission pulses are highest in ungrazed steppe and decrease with increasing stocking rate, suggesting that grazing decreases rather than increases N₂O emissions. Our results show that the stimulatory effect of higher stocking rates on nitrogen cycling^4,7 and, hence, on N₂O emission is more than offset by the effects of a parallel reduction in microbial biomass, inorganic nitrogen production and wintertime water retention. By neglecting these freeze–thaw interactions, existing approaches may have systematically overestimated N₂O emissions over the last century for semi-arid, cool temperate grasslands by up to 72 per cent.