Effect of soil frost on growing season nitrogen uptake by fine roots of mature trees in northern hardwood forests of the United States

Forests of the northeastern United States are predicted to experience a decrease in the depth and duration of the winter snowpack over the next 100 years. Even when coupled with warmer winter air temperatures, the absence of snow as insulation can increase soil frost during the winter months. Past research has determined that there are species-level effects of soil frost on dominant forest trees. For example, in stands dominated by sugar maple (Acer saccharum), induced soil frost led to increased fine root mortality and soil nitrate leaching. Soil frost also increased fine root mortality in stands dominated by yellow birch (Betula allegheniensis), but there was no significant change in leaching of soil nitrate. We hypothesized that greater nitrogen (N) losses from stands dominated by sugar maple may be due to reduced N uptake by fine roots of this tree species. To determine the impact of increased soil freezing on fine root uptake of N, we established a snow manipulation experiment in mixed sugar maple/American beech (Fagus grandifolia) forests at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in New Hampshire (n=4 paired snow-removal and reference plots; each 13m X 13m). Snow removal occurred during the first six weeks of winter over two years. During each growing season following snow removal, we used the N depletion technique to measure in situ rates of uptake of ammonium and nitrate by fine roots of sugar maple during the early, peak and late growing season. Among all sampling dates and plots, we observed significantly lower uptake of N as nitrate compared to ammonium. During the first growing season, at moderate ammonium availability (35 μM N) we observed significantly less uptake of ammonium by fine roots of sugar maple in the snow removal plots relative to the reference plots during the early growing season (April-May), with no significant differences in uptake of ammonium during the peak (July) and late (September) growing season. We observed no differences in uptake of ammonium among the snow removal and references plots at higher ammonium availability (200 μM N), nor nitrate at either concentration throughout the growing season. Results of our study suggest that the observed increase in N losses following periods of soil frost could be due to a decrease in N uptake by fine roots of mature trees, especially in the early growing season. Our study shows the effects of vegetation responses to climate change on ecosystem nitrogen cycling.