Chemical footprints of anthropogenic nitrogen deposition on recent soil C:N ratios in Europe
2015
MULDER Christian | HETTELINGH Jean-Paul | MONTANARELLA Luca | PASIMENI Maria Rita | POSCH Maximilian | VOIGT Winfried | ZURLINI Giovanni
Long-term human interactions with landscape and nature produced a plethora of trends and patterns of environmental disturbances in time and space. Nitrogen deposition, closely tracking energy and land use, is known to be among the main pollution drivers, affecting both freshwater as terrestrial ecosystems. We investigated the geographical distribution of nitrogen deposition and the impacts of accumulation on recent soil carbon to nitrogen ratios over Europe. After the Second Industrial Revolution (1880–2010), large landscape stretches characterized by different atmospheric deposition caused either by industrialized areas or by intensive agriculture emerged. Nitrogen deposition affects in a still recognizable way recent soil C:N ratios despite the emission abatement of oxidized and reduced nitrogen during the last two decades. Given the seemingly disparate land-use history, we focused on ~10,000 unmanaged ecosystems, providing evidence for a rapid response of nature to chronic nitrogen supply by atmospheric deposition.
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