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Dynamic carbon-nitrogen coupling under global change

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Abstract

Carbon-nitrogen coupling is a fundamental principle in ecosystem ecology. However, how the coupling responds to global change has not yet been examined. Through a comprehensive and systematic literature review, we assessed how the dynamics of carbon processes change with increasing nitrogen input and how nitrogen processes change with increasing carbon input under global change. Our review shows that nitrogen input to the ecosystem mostly stimulates plant primary productivity but inconsistently decreases microbial activities or increases soil carbon sequestration, with nitrogen leaching and nitrogenous gas emission rapidly increasing. Nitrogen fixation increases and nitrogen leaching decreases to improve soil nitrogen availability and support plant growth and ecosystem carbon sequestration under elevated CO2 and temperature or along ecosystem succession. We conclude that soil nitrogen cycle processes continually adjust to change in response to either overload under nitrogen addition or deficiency under CO2 enrichment and ecosystem succession to couple with carbon cycling. Indeed, processes of both carbon and nitrogen cycles continually adjust under global change, leading to dynamic coupling in carbon and nitrogen cycles. The dynamic coupling framework reconciles previous debates on the “uncoupling” or “decoupling” of ecosystem carbon and nitrogen cycles under global change. Ecosystem models failing to simulate these dynamic adjustments cannot simulate carbon-nitrogen coupling nor predict ecosystem carbon sequestration well.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31988102) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFF0802102).

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  1. Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modelling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Shuli Niu, Lei Song, Jinsong Wang & Guirui Yu

  2. College of Resources and Environment, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Shuli Niu, Lei Song & Guirui Yu

  3. Center for Ecosystem Science and Society, Department of Biological Sciences, Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ, 86011, USA

    Yiqi Luo

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  1. Shuli Niu
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Niu, S., Song, L., Wang, J. et al. Dynamic carbon-nitrogen coupling under global change. Sci. China Life Sci. 66, 771–782 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11427-022-2245-y

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