Functional response of forest ecosystems to N deposition and climate change
Abstract
To secure and manage forest ecosystem function we must understand how climate change interacts with other nascent environmental threats such as reactive nitrogen deposition. New evidence suggests that soluble nitrogen drives organic matter breakdown in forest soils with major implications for forest ecosystems and global climate change; as it is decomposition which determines the carbon/CO2 flux from these high value soil carbon deposits. Moreover climate change combined with nitrogen deposition has ecological cascade effects on ecosystem function and resilience, as a result of the altered primary resource quality, which in-turn could lead to stand level vulnerability to insect pests and diseases. Understanding the effects of climate and nitrogen deposition at relevant ecosystem scales requires elegant experimental approaches which enable us to follow the consequences of reactive nitrogen on-site in natural forest or woodland systems, as one plus one in nature rarely equals two and cannot be readily replicated in the laboratory or glasshouse. In WOOD-N-CLIMATE we will: Investigate the impacts of N deposition on underlying biogeochemical processes of carbon decomposition in the field and study the cascade effects and consequences of changing detrital or microbial resource quality. We will use these data to elaborate on the improvement of existing carbon models taking the consequences of different N deposition scenarios on forest soil carbon.This project aims to be part of an emergent experimental array, which is closely watching nature react to global climate change, by means of a bespoke toolbox of stable isotope and molecular techniques. Using predictive modelling we hope to develop management options that elicit pro-active responses to conserve our ecosystem services and woodland heritage.
Publikationen
Project staff
Rebecca Hood-Nowotny
Priv.-Doz. Rebecca Hood-Nowotny MBA Ph.D.
rebecca.hood@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-91176
Project Leader
25.01.2018 - 31.12.2018
Andrea Watzinger
Priv.-Doz. Mag.rer.nat. Dr.rer.nat. Andrea Watzinger
andrea.watzinger@boku.ac.at
Tel: +43 1 47654-91175
Project Staff
01.05.2015 - 31.12.2018