Carbon consequences of a nitrogen fixation feedback

Abstract:

Tropical forests constitute a globally important carbon sink but it is unclear how their productivity and carbon storage depend upon nutrients. There is increasing evidence of an ecosystem carbon-nitrogen feedback mechanism, by which symbiotic dinitrogen (N₂) fixing trees can provide the nitrogen needed to maintain high rates of forest biomass growth following disturbance. Field-based evaluation of this feedback is difficult, however, as the expected effects on forest carbon stores would emerge very slowly, over decades to centuries of ecological succession. Moreover, there is no known way to inhibit the fixation process in trees without causing structural damage and perturbing the carbon cycle. Coupled land biogeochemistry-vegetation models offer a way to examine the role of feedbacks that unfold over successional time. However, it is unclear how the process of nitrogen fixation ought to be represented in models so that they can capture the potential effect of fixation on the long-term forest carbon sink. In this study, we integrate a newly developed individual-based model with field observations across Panamanian tropical forests to address: 1) whether N₂ fixation enhances tropical forest carbon storage; 2) whether models must resolve fixation at the individual plant level to capture the fixation feedback; and 3) whether fixation interacts with plant functional types (i.e., early, mid, vs. late succession) to determine the carbon sink? We find that forests that have fixation recover faster and store more carbon in the long term than forests without fixation. This results in 94-118% more plant carbon stored by 30 years and an additional 13 tons C ha ^-1 stored over 300 years when compared to forests without fixation. Additionally, resolving fixation at the individual plant level is necessary to capture nitrogen dynamics over time and is particularly important for modeling succession and disturbance events. Finally, we find that the overall fixation effect is the result of two processes, the direct effect of the fixation on carbon accumulation and the indirect effect of fixation on the successional plant functional type sequence.