Climate warming and soil nutrient balances

An experimental warming and carbon dioxide enrichment study finds that under warming conditions up to 1.7 °C, sedge plants increase root growth over shoot growth, suggesting that plant demand for nitrogen outpaced soil nitrogen supply; with further warming and carbon dioxide enrichment, however, sedges allocate more growth to shoots than roots, suggesting that nitrogen supply outpaced plant demand and implying that historical soil nitrogen insufficiency in unfertilized soil may reverse under warming conditions.

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Article #19-04990: “Asynchronous nitrogen supply and demand produce nonlinear plant allocation responses to warming and elevated CO2,” by Genevieve L. Noyce, Matthew L. Kirwan, Roy L. Rich, and J. Patrick Megonigal.

MEDIA CONTACT: Genevieve L. Noyce, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD; e-mail:

[email protected]

; Pat Megonigal, Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, Edgewater, MD; email:

[email protected]