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Nitrate leaching from a sub-alpine coniferous forest subjected to experimentally increased N deposition for 20 years, and effects of tree girdling and felling

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Abstract

Increased nitrogen (N) deposition rates were simulated for 20 years (1995–2015) by sprinkling rain water enriched with NH4NO3 (+22 kg ha−1 year−1 N) in a small headwater catchment within a spruce (Picea abies) forest at Alptal (central Switzerland). The added N was labelled with 15NH 154 NO3 during the first year. A control catchment was labelled in years 6 and 8. NO3 − leaching doubled in the N-addition catchment during the first year, resulting almost entirely from loss of 15N-labelled NO3 −. The proportion of added N leached as NO3 −–N reached 1/3 after 5 years, then remained stable for the next 10 years, at 6.6–10 kg ha−1 year−1 compared with 1.4–2.9 kg ha−1 year−1 in the control catchment. In each catchment, half of the large trees were girdled during the 15th year and felled 1 year later to assess their role in soil N retention. Girdling and felling resulted in a strong increase in NO3 −–N leaching from the N-addition catchment (up to 19 kg ha−1 year−1). The increase was significantly smaller in the control (up to 4 kg ha−1 year−1). NO3 − leached after tree girdling contained only 0.18% of the originally applied tracer in the control and none detectable in the N-addition catchment. The increased leaching was thus mainly from new N and due to reduced N immobilisation by trees rather than to increased N mineralisation and nitrification in the soil. Dissolved organic N leaching (average 6.1 kg ha−1 year−1), in contrast, was unaffected by the treatment.

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Acknowledgements

This research was partly conducted within the European NITREX and NitroEurope projects. It received financial support from the Swiss National Fund for Scientific Research (Grant 31-061959.0) and, within the COST Action FP 0601/Forman, from the State Secretary for Education, Research and Innovation (Grant C07.0119) and also Sixth Framework Programme (Grant 017841). We thank D. Pezzotta and his team from the WSL central lab for chemical analyses and Dr. M. Dawes for language editing of the manuscript.

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  1. Kim Krause

    Present address: Kaden & Partner AG, Frauenfeld, Switzerland

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  1. Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland

    Patrick Schleppi, Fabienne Curtaz & Kim Krause

  2. DISAFA, NatRisk-LNSA, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Fabienne Curtaz

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Schleppi, P., Curtaz, F. & Krause, K. Nitrate leaching from a sub-alpine coniferous forest subjected to experimentally increased N deposition for 20 years, and effects of tree girdling and felling. Biogeochemistry 134, 319–335 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10533-017-0364-3

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