Ecosystem responses to elevated CO₂ governed by plant-soil interactions and the cost of nitrogen acquisition
Terrer, César (Imperial College London. Department of Life Sciences)
Vicca, Sara (Universiteit Antwerpen. Departement Biologie)
Stocker, Benjamin (Centre de Recerca Ecològica i d'Aplicacions Forestals)
Hungate, Bruce A (Northern Arizona University. Center for Ecosystem Science and Society)
Phillips, Richard P. (Indiana University, Bloomington. Department of Biology)
Reich, P. B. (University of Minnesota. Department of Forest Resources)
Finzi, Adrien C. (Boston University. Department of Biology)
Prentice, Iain Colin (Imperial College London. Department of Life Sciences)

Date:	2018
Abstract:	Contents Summary 507 I. Introduction 507 II. The return on investment approach 508 III. CO₂ response spectrum 510 IV. Discussion 516 Acknowledgements 518 References 518 SUMMARY: Land ecosystems sequester on average about a quarter of anthropogenic CO₂ emissions. It has been proposed that nitrogen (N) availability will exert an increasingly limiting effect on plants' ability to store additional carbon (C) under rising CO2 , but these mechanisms are not well understood. Here, we review findings from elevated CO₂ experiments using a plant economics framework, highlighting how ecosystem responses to elevated CO₂ may depend on the costs and benefits of plant interactions with mycorrhizal fungi and symbiotic N-fixing microbes. We found that N-acquisition efficiency is positively correlated with leaf-level photosynthetic capacity and plant growth, and negatively with soil C storage. Plants that associate with ectomycorrhizal fungi and N-fixers may acquire N at a lower cost than plants associated with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. However, the additional growth in ectomycorrhizal plants is partly offset by decreases in soil C pools via priming. Collectively, our results indicate that predictive models aimed at quantifying C cycle feedbacks to global change may be improved by treating N as a resource that can be acquired by plants in exchange for energy, with different costs depending on plant interactions with microbial symbionts.
Grants:	European Commission 701329 European Commission 610028
Rights:	Tots els drets reservats.
Language:	Anglès
Document:	Article ; recerca ; Versió acceptada per publicar
Subject:	CO₂ ; Free-Air CO₂ enrichment (FACE) ; N₂-fixation; ; Mycorrhizas ; Nitrogen ; Photosynthesis ; Soil carbon ; Soil organic matter (SOM)
Published in:	The new phytologist, Vol. 217, issue 2 (Jan. 2018) , p. 507-522, ISSN 1469-8137

DOI: 10.1111/nph.14872

Post-print 33 p, 3.0 MB

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