Soil net nitrogen mineralisation across global grasslands

A C Risch¹, S Zimmermann², R Ochoa-Hueso³, M Schütz², B Frey², J L Firn⁴, P A Fay⁵, F Hagedorn², E T Borer⁶, E W Seabloom⁶, W S Harpole^{7

8

9}, J M H Knops^{10

11}, R L McCulley¹², A A D Broadbent^{13

14}, C J Stevens¹⁴, M L Silveira¹⁵, P B Adler¹⁶, S Báez¹⁷, L A Biederman¹⁸, J M Blair¹⁹, C S Brown²⁰, M C Caldeira²¹, S L Collins²², P Daleo²³, A di Virgilio²⁴, A Ebeling²⁵, N Eisenhauer^{8

26}, E Esch²⁷, A Eskelinen^{7

8

28}, N Hagenah²⁹, Y Hautier³⁰, K P Kirkman³¹, A S MacDougall³², J L Moore³³, S A Power³⁴, S M Prober³⁵, C Roscher^{7

8}, M Sankaran^{36

37}, J Siebert^{8

26}, K L Speziale²⁴, P M Tognetti³⁸, R Virtanen^{7

8

28}, L Yahdjian³⁸, B Moser²

Affiliations

¹ Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zuercherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland. anita.risch@wsl.ch.
² Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zuercherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland.
³ Department of Biology, IVAGRO, University of Cádiz, Campus de Excelencia Internacional Agroalimentario (ceiA3), Campus Rio San Pedro, 11510, Puerto Real, Cádiz, Spain.
⁴ Queensland University of Technology (QUT), School of Earth, Environmental and Biological Sciences, Science and Engineering Faculty, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia.
⁵ USDA-ARS Grassland Soil, and Water Research Laboratory, Temple, TX, 76502, USA.
⁶ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
⁷ Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research-UFZ, Permoserstrasse 15, Leipzig, 04318, Germany.
⁸ German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, Leipzig, 04103, Germany.
⁹ Institute of Biology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Am Kirchtor 1, Halle (Saale), 06108, Germany.
¹⁰ School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, 211A Manter Hall, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA.
¹¹ Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou, 215213, China.
¹² Department of Plant & Soil Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40546-0312, USA.
¹³ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Michael Smith Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PT, UK.
¹⁴ Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK.
¹⁵ University of Florida, Range Cattle Research and Education Center, Ona, FL, 33865, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, 5230 Old Main, Logan, UT, 84103, USA.
¹⁷ Departamento de Biología, Escuela Politécnica Nacional del Ecuador, Ladrón de Guevera E11-253 y Andalucía, Quito, Ecuador.
¹⁸ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA.
¹⁹ Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66502, USA.
²⁰ Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, 1177 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
²¹ Centro de Estudos Florestais, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal.
²² Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA.
²³ Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, CONICET, Mar del Plata, Argentina.
²⁴ INIBIOMA (CONICET-UNCOMA), Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Grupo de Investigaciones en Biología de la Conservación (GrInBiC) Laboratorio Ecotono, Quintral, 1250, Bariloche, Argentina.
²⁵ Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Dornburger Str. 159, 07743, Jena, Germany.
²⁶ Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
²⁷ University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
²⁸ Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Oulu, Pentti Kaiteran katu 1, 90014, Oulu, Finland.
²⁹ Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology & Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
³⁰ Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
³¹ University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209, South Africa.
³² Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, N1G 2W1, ON, Canada.
³³ School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Claytion, VIC, 3800, Australia.
³⁴ Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia.
³⁵ CSIRO Land and Water, Private Bag 5, Wembley, WA, 6913, Australia.
³⁶ National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR, Bangalore, 560065, India.
³⁷ School of Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
³⁸ Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Agronomía, Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA), CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

PMID: 31672992
PMCID: PMC6823350
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12948-2

Soil net nitrogen mineralisation across global grasslands

A C Risch et al. Nat Commun. 2019.

. 2019 Oct 31;10(1):4981.

doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-12948-2.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zuercherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland. anita.risch@wsl.ch.
² Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Zuercherstrasse 111, 8903, Birmensdorf, Switzerland.
³ Department of Biology, IVAGRO, University of Cádiz, Campus de Excelencia Internacional Agroalimentario (ceiA3), Campus Rio San Pedro, 11510, Puerto Real, Cádiz, Spain.
⁴ Queensland University of Technology (QUT), School of Earth, Environmental and Biological Sciences, Science and Engineering Faculty, Brisbane, QLD, 4001, Australia.
⁵ USDA-ARS Grassland Soil, and Water Research Laboratory, Temple, TX, 76502, USA.
⁶ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA.
⁷ Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research-UFZ, Permoserstrasse 15, Leipzig, 04318, Germany.
⁸ German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Deutscher Platz 5e, Leipzig, 04103, Germany.
⁹ Institute of Biology, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Am Kirchtor 1, Halle (Saale), 06108, Germany.
¹⁰ School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska, 211A Manter Hall, Lincoln, NE, 68588, USA.
¹¹ Department of Health and Environmental Sciences, Xi'an Jiaotong Liverpool University, Suzhou, 215213, China.
¹² Department of Plant & Soil Sciences, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40546-0312, USA.
¹³ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Michael Smith Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PT, UK.
¹⁴ Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YQ, UK.
¹⁵ University of Florida, Range Cattle Research and Education Center, Ona, FL, 33865, USA.
¹⁶ Department of Wildland Resources and the Ecology Center, Utah State University, 5230 Old Main, Logan, UT, 84103, USA.
¹⁷ Departamento de Biología, Escuela Politécnica Nacional del Ecuador, Ladrón de Guevera E11-253 y Andalucía, Quito, Ecuador.
¹⁸ Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, 50011, USA.
¹⁹ Division of Biology, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, 66502, USA.
²⁰ Department of Bioagricultural Sciences and Pest Management, Graduate Degree Program in Ecology, Colorado State University, 1177 Campus Delivery, Fort Collins, CO, USA.
²¹ Centro de Estudos Florestais, Instituto Superior de Agronomia, Universidade de Lisboa, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017, Lisboa, Portugal.
²² Department of Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, 87131, USA.
²³ Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras (IIMyC), Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, CONICET, Mar del Plata, Argentina.
²⁴ INIBIOMA (CONICET-UNCOMA), Universidad Nacional del Comahue, Grupo de Investigaciones en Biología de la Conservación (GrInBiC) Laboratorio Ecotono, Quintral, 1250, Bariloche, Argentina.
²⁵ Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Dornburger Str. 159, 07743, Jena, Germany.
²⁶ Institute of Biology, Leipzig University, Deutscher Platz 5e, 04103, Leipzig, Germany.
²⁷ University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Dr, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
²⁸ Department of Ecology and Genetics, University of Oulu, Pentti Kaiteran katu 1, 90014, Oulu, Finland.
²⁹ Mammal Research Institute, Department of Zoology & Entomology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa.
³⁰ Ecology and Biodiversity Group, Department of Biology, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
³¹ University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, Private Bag X01, Scottsville, 3209, South Africa.
³² Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, N1G 2W1, ON, Canada.
³³ School of Biological Sciences, Monash University, Claytion, VIC, 3800, Australia.
³⁴ Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751, Australia.
³⁵ CSIRO Land and Water, Private Bag 5, Wembley, WA, 6913, Australia.
³⁶ National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR, Bangalore, 560065, India.
³⁷ School of Biology, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK.
³⁸ Universidad de Buenos Aires, Facultad de Agronomía, Instituto de Investigaciones Fisiológicas y Ecológicas vinculadas a la Agricultura (IFEVA), CONICET, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

PMID: 31672992
PMCID: PMC6823350
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-12948-2

Abstract

Soil nitrogen mineralisation (N_min), the conversion of organic into inorganic N, is important for productivity and nutrient cycling. The balance between mineralisation and immobilisation (net N_min) varies with soil properties and climate. However, because most global-scale assessments of net N_min are laboratory-based, its regulation under field-conditions and implications for real-world soil functioning remain uncertain. Here, we explore the drivers of realised (field) and potential (laboratory) soil net N_min across 30 grasslands worldwide. We find that realised N_min is largely explained by temperature of the wettest quarter, microbial biomass, clay content and bulk density. Potential N_min only weakly correlates with realised N_min, but contributes to explain realised net N_min when combined with soil and climatic variables. We provide novel insights of global realised soil net N_min and show that potential soil net N_min data available in the literature could be parameterised with soil and climate data to better predict realised N_min.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

**Fig. 1**
Realised soil net N mineralisation. a Photo of a cylinder used during field measurements. A mesh-bag filled with ion-exchange resin is visible at the top of the cylinder. b Schematic N mineralisation processes as found within our cylinders. An exchange resin bag on top captured atmospheric N deposition/N in run-off, another resin bag at the bottom of the cylinder captured N leaching from the soil column. Details on calculation of soil net N mineralisation based on the variables measured are given in the “Methods” section

**Fig. 2**
Geographic and climatic distribution of experimental sites. a Location of the 30 NutNet sites where the field experiment was conducted and soil samples were collected for laboratory analyses. b The 30 study sites represent a wide range of mean annual temperature (MAT) and mean annual precipitation (MAP). Our sites also cover a wide range of soil edaphic conditions as described in the main text and shown in Supplementary Table 2. Source data are provided in the source data file

**Fig. 3**
Conceptual model on the expected causal relationships between environmental variables, soil properties and potential soil net N_min to estimate realised soil net N_min. The conceptual model is based on hypotheses derived from the literature and our linear mixed effects model results (see Table 1 for hypotheses and references). Tvar = temperature variability, T.q.wet = temperature of the wettest quarter

**Fig. 4**
Global patterns in realised and potential soil net N mineralisation (soil net N_min). a Realised soil net N_min at 30 NutNet sites ordered according to increasing realised soil net N_min. b Potential soil net N_min at the 30 NutNet sites. Order of sites according to a. The box represents the median (50th percentile), 25th and 75th percentile of the data for each site. The whiskers represent 1.5 times the inter-quartile range. Source data are provided in the source data file

**Fig. 5**
Global drivers of realised soil net N mineralisation (soil net N_min). a Structural equation modelling diagram representing connections between climatic conditions, soil physical, chemical and biological properties found to influence realised and potential soil net N mineralisation. The width of the connections represents estimates of the standardised path coefficients, with solid lines representing a positive relationship and dashed lines a negative relationship. Significant connections and R² are shown in black, non-significant ones in light-grey. b Standardised total, direct and indirect effects of variables associated with realised soil net N min. ^†p < 0.1, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Clay content = soil clay content, Microbial biomass = soil microbial biomass, Tvar = temperature seasonality, T.q.wet = temperature of the wettest quarter. The total number of observations = 85, the total number of sites = 30

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Soil net nitrogen mineralisation across global grasslands

Affiliations

Soil net nitrogen mineralisation across global grasslands

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

Figures

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