Impacts of Aeolian dust deposition on European forest sustainability : A review

International audience

Inglés. Keeping European temperate forests on acidic soils sustainable is challenging for forest management andwood production. Nutrient budgets are a diagnostic tool that assesses forest sustainability by adding upnutrient inputs (atmospheric dissolved deposition and soil weathering) and outputs (losses in drainagewater and by wood harvesting). In these forests, nutrient budgets of essential nutrients are often unbalanced, especially for the base cations Ca, Mg and K, meaning that these nutrients deplete from the ecosystem, what threatens forest sustainability. Whereas Aeolian dust deposition (ADD) is recognized as asignificant nutrient input in various ecosystems, particularly in oceans, it is not taken into account inusual nutrient budgets of European forests. ADD has been characterized in different places in the world,however, little is known in European forests and about ADD impacts on their biogeochemical cycles. Tofill this gap, this review aims at synthesizing data on ADD characteristics in European forests to putforward a deposition model over Europe and calculate nutrient fluxes, highlighting the contributionof ADD to plant tissues in two ecosystems with an isotopic approach, evaluating the contribution ofADD to the total nutrient inputs, and assessing the impacts of ADD on European nutrient budgets offorests concerning Ca, Mg and K. Aeolian dust in Europe is either long-distance transported from aridregions such as Sahara or short-distance from the erosion of local soils. It was estimated to deposit between 41 and 129 kg ha1 year1 throughout Europe. Its mineralogical composition reveals nutrientbearing minerals, silicates and nonsilicates (carbonates, oxides, hydroxides, sulphates, phosphates,halides). This suggests Aeolian dust may contribute as high as 30% of total nutrient inputs, so that itmay significantly shift upwards nutrient budgets of European forests under latitude 52N. Further investigations are therefore needed to inform about accurate ADD rates below the tree canopy and to takeaccount of the total nutrient inputs.