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Ecosystem constraints to symbiotic nitrogen fixers: a simple model and its implications

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New Perspectives on Nitrogen Cycling in the Temperate and Tropical Americas

Abstract

The widespread occurrence of N limitation to net primary production (NPP) and other ecosystem processes, despite the ubiquitous occurrence of N-fixing symbioses, remains a significant puzzle in terrestrial ecology. We describe a simple simulation model for an ecosystem containing a generic nonfixer and a symbiotic N fixer, based on: (1) a higher cost for N acquisition by N fixers than nonfixers; (2) growth of fixers and fixation of N only when low N availability limits the growth of nonfixers, and other resources are available; and (3) losses of fixed N from the system only when the quantity of available N exceeds plant and microbial demands. Despite the disadvantages faced by the N fixer under these conditions, N fixation and loss adjust N availability close to the availability of other resources, and biomass and NPP in this simple model can be substantially but only transiently N limited. We then modify the model by adding: (1) losses of N in forms other than excess available N (e.g., dissolved organic N, trace gases produced by nitrification); and (2) constraints to the growth and activity of N fixers imposed by differential effects of shading, P limitation, and grazing. The combination of these processes is sufficient to describe an open system, with input from both precipitation and N fixation, that is nevertheless strongly N-limited at equilibrium. This model is useful for exploring causes and consequences of constraints to N fixation, and hence of N limitation, and we believe it will also be useful for evaluating how N fixation and limitation interact with elevated CO2 and other components of global enviromental change.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, California, 94305, USA

    Peter M. Vitousek

  2. Department of Plant Biology, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA

    Christopher B. Field

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  1. Peter M. Vitousek
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA

    Alan R. Townsend

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Vitousek, P.M., Field, C.B. (1999). Ecosystem constraints to symbiotic nitrogen fixers: a simple model and its implications. In: Townsend, A.R. (eds) New Perspectives on Nitrogen Cycling in the Temperate and Tropical Americas. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4645-6_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4645-6_9

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-5961-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-011-4645-6

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