Bedrock nitrogen may help forests buffer climate change, study finds
For the first time, researchers at the University of California, Davis, have demonstrated that forest trees have the ability to tap into nitrogen found in rocks, boosting the trees’ growth and their ability to pull more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
Given that carbon dioxide is the most important climate-change gas, the nitrogen in rocks could significantly affect how rapidly Earth will warm in the future, the researchers say. They report their findings in the Sept. 1 issue of the scientific journal Nature.
If trees can access more nitrogen than previously thought, that could lead to more storage of carbon on land and less carbon remaining in the atmosphere.
“We were really shocked; everything we’ve ever thought about the nitrogen cycle and all of the textbook theories have been turned on their heads by these data,” said Professor Benjamin Houlton, a biogeochemist and one of the study’s co-authors.