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  • Review Article
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Key ecological responses to nitrogen are altered by climate change

Nature Climate Change volume 6, pages 836–843 (2016)Cite this article

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Abstract

Climate change and anthropogenic nitrogen deposition are both important ecological threats. Evaluating their cumulative effects provides a more holistic view of ecosystem vulnerability to human activities, which would better inform policy decisions aimed to protect the sustainability of ecosystems. Our knowledge of the cumulative effects of these stressors is growing, but we lack an integrated understanding. In this Review, we describe how climate change alters key processes in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems related to nitrogen cycling and availability, and the response of ecosystems to nitrogen addition in terms of carbon cycling, acidification and biodiversity.

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Figure 1
Figure 2: The effects of increased nitrogen (N), temperature (T) and precipitation (P) upon terrestrial carbon pools (left panel) and fluxes (right panel) from published meta-analyses.
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Acknowledgements

The authors thank the participants of the Environmental Protection Agency sponsored workshop: 'Interacting Effects of Climate and Nitrogen on Ecosystems and Their Services: Workshop to Review Current Science and Inform Policy-Driven Scientific Needs' for their contributions. We also thank Meredith Lassiter and Ellen Cooter for technical comments to improve the manuscript. The views expressed in this abstract are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of the US EPA.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Center for Environmental Assessment, US Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, 27711, North Carolina, USA

    T. L. Greaver, A. F. Talhelm, C. P. Weaver, E. Felker-Quinn, J. D. Herrick & K. J. Novak

  2. National Center for Environmental Assessment, US Environmental Protection Agency, Arlington, 22202, Virginia, USA

    C. M. Clark

  3. Western Ecology Division, US Environmental Protection Agency, Corvallis, 97333, Oregon, USA

    J. E. Compton

  4. Air Quality Analysis Office (AQAO), US Environmental Protection Agency, Region 9 Air Division, 75 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, 94105, California, USA

    D. Vallano

  5. College of Natural Resources, University of Idaho, Moscow, 83844, Idaho, USA

    A. F. Talhelm

  6. Department of Geography, Institute for the Environment, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, 27514, North Carolina, USA

    L. E. Band

  7. US Geological Survey, Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, 80523-1499, Colorado, USA

    J. S. Baron

  8. Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, 301 Braddock Road, Frostburg, 21532, Maryland, USA

    E. A. Davidson

  9. Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California, Bren Hall, Isla Vista, 93271, California, USA

    C. L. Tague

  10. Clean Air Markets Division, US Environmental Protection Agency, 20460, Washington, DC, USA

    J. A. Lynch & R. A. Haeuber

  11. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiangshan, Beijing, 100093, China

    L. Liu

  12. Cornell University, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Corson Hall Ithaca, 14853, New York, USA

    C. L. Goodale

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  1. T. L. Greaver
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Contributions

C.M.C., J.E.C., R.A.H. and T.L.G conceived the paper. T.L.G., C.M.C., J.E.C., D.V., A.F.T. and C.P.W. led the writing, with contributions from L.L., E.F., E.A.D, C.L.G., J.A.L., L.E.B., C.L.T., J.S.B., J.D.H. and K.J.N.

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Correspondence to T. L. Greaver.

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Greaver, T., Clark, C., Compton, J. et al. Key ecological responses to nitrogen are altered by climate change. Nature Clim Change 6, 836–843 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3088

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