Organic matter input to soils can accelerate the decomposition of native soil carbon (C), a process called the priming effect. Priming is ubiquitous and exhibits some consistent patterns, but a general explanation remains elusive, in part because of variation in the response across different ecosystems, and because of a diversity […]
Like a long-distance food delivery app with no apparent highway, fungi that associate with shallow-rooted shrubs in the tundra are accessing deep stores of nitrogen being released by thawing permafrost. The findings by Northern Arizona University researchers, announced this week in New Phytologist, could change scientists’ understanding of who accesses […]
Asymbiotic nitrogen (N) fixation (ANF) is an important source of N in pristine forests and is predicted to decrease with N deposition. Previous studies revealing N fixation in response to N deposition have mostly applied understory N addition approaches, neglecting the key processes (for example, N retention and uptake) occurring […]
Direct quantification of terrestrial biosphere responses to global change is crucial for projections of future climate change in Earth system models. Here, we synthesized ecosystem carbon-cycling data from 1,119 experiments performed over the past four decades concerning changes in temperature, precipitation, CO2 and nitrogen across major terrestrial vegetation types of […]
Accurate prediction of community responses to global change drivers (GCDs) is critical given the effects of biodiversity on ecosystem services. There is consensus that human activities are driving species extinctions at the global scale, but debate remains over whether GCDs are systematically altering local communities worldwide. Across 105 experiments that […]
Estimating soil erosion and nutrient losses from surface runoff in paddy fields is essential for the assessment of sustainable rice (Oryza sativa L.) production and water quality protection. Different rice establishment methods have been used in the last three decades in Asia; however, it is still unclear how these methods […]
Chinese milk vetch (Astragalus sinicus L., vetch), a leguminous winter cover crop, has been widely adopted by farmers in southern China to boost yield of the succeeding rice crop. However, the effects of vetch on rice grain yield and nitrogen (N) use efficiency have not yet been well studied in […]
Organic matter input to soils can accelerate the decomposition of native soil carbon (C), a process called the priming effect. Priming is ubiquitous and exhibits some consistent patterns, but a general explanation remains elusive, in part because of variation in the response across different ecosystems, and because of a diversity […]
Ecologists increasingly use hierarchical Bayesian (HB) models to estimate group-level parameters that vary by, for example, species, treatment level, habitat type or other factors. Group-level parameters may be compared to infer differences among levels. We would conclude a non-zero pairwise difference, separately, for each pair in the group, when the […]
Wildfire is an important ecological disturbance that can have cascading effects on ecosystem carbon (C) fluxes. Ecosystem respiration (ER) and soil respiration (SR) account for two of the largest terrestrial C fluxes to the atmosphere, and they play critical roles in regulating C?climate feedbacks. Here, the responses of ER, SR […]