Nitrogen Availability and Forest Canopy Albedo from Leaf to Regional Scales

CO2 uptake capacity in temperate and boreal forests has been shown to scale directly with whole-canopy nitrogen concentrations, mirroring a leaf-level trend that has been observed for woody plants worldwide. Recent work has also demonstrated that both CO2 uptake capacity and canopy %N are strongly and positively correlated with shortwave surface albedo. This suggests that variation in nitrogen availability may play an additional, and previously overlooked, role in the climate system via its influence on surface energy exchange as well as via its better-known influence on carbon assimilation. Thus far, the carbon-nitrogen-albedo relationship has been demonstrated at relatively coarse spatial scales that cover broad gradients in climate and forest type. It is unclear whether similar trends occur within local landscapes and within ecosystems other than forests. It is also unclear whether N deposition and N fertilization can cause a shift in albedo stemming from changes in foliar %N. Examining finer-scale patterns in the N-albedo relationship is necessary before we can establish the generality of the observed trends and understand their implications for carbon-nutrient-climate interactions. Here, we expand on the C-N-albedo relationship in several important ways: (1) using fine-scale remote sensing data from the U.S. and Canada, we examined albedo in relation to foliar N and canopy structure at local scales for several well characterized landscapes; (2) we examined changes in both foliar N and albedo along a regional-scale nitrogen deposition gradient; (3) we examined leaf-level changes in %N and albedo in response to experimental N additions, and (4) we conducted a global synthesis of data from FLUXNET to examine the C-N-albedo relationship over a broader range of ecosystems. Results are discussed in the context of improving our understanding of interactions between terrestrial biogeochemistry and climate.