Imperial College London
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DrBonnieWaring

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park)

Senior Lecturer
 
 
 
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Contact

 

b.waring

 
 
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Location

 

Sherfield BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Averill:2018:10.1111/gcb.13980,
author = {Averill, C and Waring, B},
doi = {10.1111/gcb.13980},
journal = {Global Change Biology},
pages = {1417--1427},
title = {Nitrogen limitation of decomposition and decay: How can it occur?},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13980},
volume = {24},
year = {2018}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - The availability of nitrogen (N) is a critical control on the cycling and storage of soil carbon (C). Yet, there are conflicting conceptual models to explain how N availability influences the decomposition of organic matter by soil microbial communities. Several lines of evidence suggest that N availability limits decomposition; the earliest stages of leaf litter decay are associated with a net import of N from the soil environment, and both observations and models show that high N organic matter decomposes more rapidly. In direct contrast to these findings, experimental additions of inorganic N to soils broadly show a suppression of microbial activity, which is inconsistent with N limitation of decomposition. Resolving this apparent contradiction is critical to representing nutrient dynamics in predictive ecosystem models under a multitude of global change factors that alter soil N availability. Here, we propose a new conceptual framework, the Carbon, Acidity, and Mineral Protection hypothesis, to understand the effects of N availability on soil C cycling and storage and explore the predictions of this framework with a mathematical model. Our model simulations demonstrate that N addition can have opposing effects on separate soil C pools (particulate and mineralprotected carbon) because they are differentially affected by microbial biomass growth. Moreover, changes in N availability are frequently linked to shifts in soil pH or osmotic stress, which can independently affect microbial biomass dynamics and mask N stimulation of microbial activity. Thus, the net effect of N addition on soil C is dependent upon interactions among microbial physiology, soil mineralogy, and soil acidity. We believe that our synthesis provides a broadly applicable conceptual framework to understand and predict the effect of changes in soil N availability on ecosystem C cycling under global change.
AU  - Averill,C
AU  - Waring,B
DO  - 10.1111/gcb.13980
EP  - 1427
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 1354-1013
SP  - 1417
TI  - Nitrogen limitation of decomposition and decay: How can it occur?
T2  - Global Change Biology
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/gcb.13980
UR  - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/gcb.13980
VL  - 24
ER  -
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