Life Sciences Commons^™

Changes In Nitrogen Cycling During The Past Century In A Northern Hardwood Forest, Kendra K. Mclauchlan, Joseph M. Craine, W. Wyatt Oswald, Peter R. Leavitt, Gene E. Likens

Dartmouth Scholarship

Nitrogen (N) availability, defined here as the supply of N to terrestrial plants and soil microorganisms relative to their N demands, limits the productivity of many temperate zone forests and in part determines ecosystem carbon (C) content. Despite multidecadal monitoring of N in streams, the long-term record of N availability in forests of the northeastern United States is largely unknown. Therefore, although these forests have been receiving anthropogenic N deposition for the past few decades, it is still uncertain whether terrestrial N availability has changed during this time and, subsequently, whether forest ecosystems have responded to increased N deposition. Here, …