Potential impact of atmospheric N deposition on soil N2O emission varies with different soil N regimes

Future increases in nitrogen (N) deposition has the potential to change belowground nutrient dynamics, especially N cycle, and thereby can alter the soil-atmosphere exchange of nitrous oxide (N2O) which is one of the major greenhouse gases. Moreover, we considered that their effect on soil N2O emission varies with different soil N levels because N2O is a by-product of the biological nitrification process in aerobic soil environments and of the biological denitrification process in anaerobic soil environments. To understand the changes in soil N2O flux under different soil N, we carried out simulated N addition experiment in three-year-old hybrid larch F1 (F1: Larix gmelinii var. japonica × Larix kaempferi) plantation during two growing seasons 2008 - 2009. The hybrid larch F1 was developed to make up for several problems of larch species, e.g. a high susceptibility to disease or grazing damage by insects and fungi, and a large number of this seedlings are planted recently in northern Japan. Based on soil analysis, we selected two sites which have different soil N concentration, i.e. low-N and high-N concentrations. Nitrogen input was initiated at the onset of our experiment, and included four treatments with four replications: Low-N soil + Zero-N control, Low-N soil + 50 kg-N addition, High-N soil + Zero-N control and High-N soil + 50 kg-N addition. The N was added as ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) solution distributed in four occasions during each growing season. Gas and soil samples were taken from each plot on ten occasions at a time during each growing season. Collected N2O concentrations were determined by a gas chromatograph (GC-14B; Shimadzu, Kyoto, Japan) equipped with an electron capture detector, while total-N and inorganic-N concentrations were obtained by a NC analyzer (Sumigraph NC-1000; Sumica Chemical Analysis Service Ltd., Osaka, Japan) and an auto analyzer (AACS-4; BL-TEC Inc., Osaka, Japan), respectively. Before the N addition, initial total-N in High-N soil was almost two times higher than that of Low-N soil, but there were no significant differences in physical soil properties among four treatments, e.g. bulk density and water-filled pore space. During the measurement period, N addition increased NH4-N and NO3-N concentrations (P < 0.01), and therefore stimulated soil N2O emissions from 50 kg-N addition plots in both soil N regimes (P < 0.05). Furthermore, increased levels of soil N2O flux in High-N soil were higher than that of Low-N soil (P < 0.001). In this study, we found a positive spatial relationship between soil N2O emission and NO3-N concentration (R2 = 0.80, P < 0.0001). Overall, N addition induced emission in High-N soil was equivalent to 1.66% of the applied N. This value is over the IPCC 1.25% default value, but the loss of 0.69% in Low-N soil is considerably lower than the IPCC mean default value. In conclusion, our results suggest that soil N2O emission seems to largely depend on whether the ecosystem N limited or not at the time of N inputs. Nitrogen cycling in forest ecosystems, which already exhibits large N2O emission, responded strongly to the added N, where as an ecosystem that has been limited by N uses up the added N rapidly and soil N2O emission was elevated only for a short term.