TY - JOUR
T1 - Global patterns and controlling factors of soil nitrification rate
AU - Li, Zhaolei
AU - Zeng, Zhaoqi
AU - Tian, Dashuan
AU - Wang, Jinsong
AU - Fu, Zheng
AU - Zhang, Fangyue
AU - Zhang, Ruiyang
AU - Chen, Weinan
AU - Luo, Yiqi
AU - Niu, Shuli
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons Ltd
PY - 2020/7/1
Y1 - 2020/7/1
N2 - Soil nitrification, an important pathway of nitrogen transformation in ecosystems, produces soil nitrate that influences net primary productivity, while the by-product of nitrification, nitrous oxide, is a significant greenhouse gas. Although there have been many studies addressing the microbiology, physiology, and impacting environment factors of soil nitrification at local scales, there are very few studies on soil nitrification rate over large scales. We conducted a global synthesis on the patterns and controlling factors of soil nitrification rate normalized at 25°C by compiling 3,140 observations from 186 published articles across terrestrial ecosystems. Soil nitrification rate tended to decrease with increasing latitude, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, and varied largely with ecosystem types. The soil nitrification rate significantly increased with mean annual temperature (MAT), soil nitrogen content, microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen, soil ammonium, and soil pH, but decreased with soil carbon:nitrogen and carbon:nitrogen of microbial biomass. The total soil nitrogen content contributed the most to the variations of global soil nitrification rate (total coefficient = 0.29) in structural equation models. The microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN; total coefficient = 0.19) was nearly of equivalent importance relative to MAT (total coefficient = 0.25) and soil pH (total coefficient = 0.24) in determining soil nitrification rate, while soil nitrogen and pH influenced soil nitrification via changing soil MBN. Moreover, the emission of soil nitrous oxide was positively related to soil nitrification rate at a global scale. This synthesis will advance our current understanding on the mechanisms underlying large-scale variations of soil nitrification and benefit the biogeochemical models in simulating global nitrogen cycling.
AB - Soil nitrification, an important pathway of nitrogen transformation in ecosystems, produces soil nitrate that influences net primary productivity, while the by-product of nitrification, nitrous oxide, is a significant greenhouse gas. Although there have been many studies addressing the microbiology, physiology, and impacting environment factors of soil nitrification at local scales, there are very few studies on soil nitrification rate over large scales. We conducted a global synthesis on the patterns and controlling factors of soil nitrification rate normalized at 25°C by compiling 3,140 observations from 186 published articles across terrestrial ecosystems. Soil nitrification rate tended to decrease with increasing latitude, especially in the Northern Hemisphere, and varied largely with ecosystem types. The soil nitrification rate significantly increased with mean annual temperature (MAT), soil nitrogen content, microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen, soil ammonium, and soil pH, but decreased with soil carbon:nitrogen and carbon:nitrogen of microbial biomass. The total soil nitrogen content contributed the most to the variations of global soil nitrification rate (total coefficient = 0.29) in structural equation models. The microbial biomass nitrogen (MBN; total coefficient = 0.19) was nearly of equivalent importance relative to MAT (total coefficient = 0.25) and soil pH (total coefficient = 0.24) in determining soil nitrification rate, while soil nitrogen and pH influenced soil nitrification via changing soil MBN. Moreover, the emission of soil nitrous oxide was positively related to soil nitrification rate at a global scale. This synthesis will advance our current understanding on the mechanisms underlying large-scale variations of soil nitrification and benefit the biogeochemical models in simulating global nitrogen cycling.
KW - climate
KW - microbial biomass
KW - nitrogen cycle
KW - soil nitrification rate
KW - soil pH
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85084650061&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85084650061&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/gcb.15119
DO - 10.1111/gcb.15119
M3 - Article
C2 - 32301539
AN - SCOPUS:85084650061
SN - 1354-1013
VL - 26
SP - 4147
EP - 4157
JO - Global change biology
JF - Global change biology
IS - 7
ER -