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A general framework for nitrogen deposition effects on soil respiration in global forests

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Abstract

Since the Industrial Revolution, human activities have altered atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition to global forests, affecting carbon dioxide emissions from soils (soil respiration or SR) – one of the largest land-atmosphere carbon fluxes. However, experimental studies have demonstrated both positive and negative effects of N deposition on SR in global forests, leading to debates on how N deposition increases or decreases SR. We developed a framework for generalizing SR responses to N deposition using synthesized data from 168 N addition experiments worldwide and observed SR across the global natural N deposition gradient. The findings indicate that N deposition decreased SR in 2.9% of global forested areas, particularly in eastern China, western Europe, and the eastern USA. However, the net effect of N deposition increased the global forest SR by ~5% (1.7 ± 0.1 PgC yr–1). If N pollution could be effectively controlled, global forest SR would decrease, potentially contributing to a reduction in the terrestrial carbon emissions.

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Data availability

Data supporting the findings of this study (including CO2_exp and CO2_obs datasets) are available in Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17670031).

Code availability

R code file supporting the findings of this study is available in Zenodo (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17670031).

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Prof. James Raich (Iowa State University) for his inputs on early version of this paper. We are grateful to all the researchers who spent time and effort on manipulative experiments and observations and made the data publicly accessible. This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32430067, 32588202, 42141004) and the National Key R&D Program of China (2023YFF1305900, 2022YFF080210102) received by N.H., and the Pioneer Center for Landscape Research in Sustainable Agricultural Futures (Land-CRAFT), DNRF grant number P2 received by K.B.B.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Boreal Forest Ecosystem Conservation and Restoration, National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Harbin, China

    Xiaoyu Cen & Nianpeng He

  2. Key Laboratory of Ecosystem Network Observation and Modeling, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xiaoyu Cen, Nianpeng He, Shuli Niu, Kailiang Yu, Li Xu & Mingxu Li

  3. Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA

    Xiaoyu Cen, Peter Vitousek & Elizabeth L. Paulus

  4. Pioneer Center Land-CRAFT, Department of Agroecology, Aarhus University, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Xiaoyu Cen & Klaus Butterbach-Bahl

  5. Institute of Carbon Neutrality, School of Ecology, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, China

    Nianpeng He

  6. Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD, USA

    Ben Bond-Lamberty

  7. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Disaster Risk Reduction, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China

    Enzai Du

  8. High Meadows Environmental Institute, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Kailiang Yu

  9. Key Laboratory of Vegetation Restoration and Management of Degraded Ecosystems, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Applied Botany, South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

    Mianhai Zheng

  10. Department of System Earth Science, Maastricht University, Innovalaan 1, Venlo, the Netherlands

    Kevin Van Sundert

  11. Geochemistry and Biogeochemistry Group, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA, USA

    Elizabeth L. Paulus

  12. Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

    Liyin He

  13. Institute for Meteorology and Climate Research, Atmospheric Environmental Research, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany

    Klaus Butterbach-Bahl

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  1. Xiaoyu Cen
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  2. Peter Vitousek
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Contributions

X.C. collected data and carried out the analysis based on feedback from N.H., P.V., and K.B.B. X.C. drafted the initial manuscript, P.V., N.H., B.B.L., S.N., E.D., K.Y., M.Z., K.V.S., E.L.P., L.H., L.X., M.L., and K.B.B. reviewed and edited the manuscript.

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Nianpeng He.

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Cen, X., Vitousek, P., He, N. et al. A general framework for nitrogen deposition effects on soil respiration in global forests.
Nat Commun (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-67203-8

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