Edited by Thure E. Cerling, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, and approved January 9, 2019 (received for review August 29, 2018)
Tree species that form symbioses with nitrogen-fixing bacteria can naturally fertilize forests by converting atmospheric nitrogen gas into plant-available forms. However, other mineral nutrients that plants require for growth are largely locked in bedrock, and are released only slowly into soil. We used strontium isotopes to trace nutrient sources for six common tree species in a temperate rainforest, including one species from a globally widespread genus known for high rates of biological nitrogen fixation. We found that trees capable of fixing atmospheric nitrogen gas were also best able to directly access mineral nutrients from bedrock. This gives nitrogen-fixing trees the unique ability to provide the full suite of essential nutrients required to fuel growth and carbon uptake in forest ecosystems.
Symbiotic nitrogen (N)-fixing trees supply significant N inputs to forest ecosystems, leading to increased soil fertility, forest growth, and carbon storage. Rapid growth and stoichiometric constraints of N fixers also create high demands for rock-derived nutrients such as phosphorus (P), while excess fixed N can generate acidity and accelerate leaching of rock-derived nutrients such as calcium (Ca). This ability of N-fixing trees to accelerate cycles of Ca, P, and other rock-derived nutrients has fostered speculation of a direct link between N fixation and mineral weathering in terrestrial ecosystems. However, field evidence that N-fixing trees have enhanced access to rock-derived nutrients is lacking. Here we use strontium (Sr) isotopes as a tracer of nutrient sources in a mixed-species temperate rainforest to show that N-fixing trees access more rock-derived nutrients than nonfixing trees. The N-fixing tree red alder (Alnus rubra), on average, took up 8 to 18% more rock-derived Sr than five co-occurring nonfixing tree species, including two with high requirements for rock-derived nutrients. The increased access to rock-derived nutrients occurred despite spatial variation in community‐wide Sr sources across the forest, and only N fixers had foliar Sr isotopes that differed significantly from soil exchangeable pools. We calculate that increased uptake of rock-derived nutrients by N-fixing alder requires a 64% increase in weathering supply of nutrients over nonfixing trees. These findings provide direct evidence that an N-fixing tree species can also accelerate nutrient inputs from rock weathering, thus increasing supplies of multiple nutrients that limit carbon uptake and storage in forest ecosystems.
Author contributions: S.S.P. and J.C.P.-R. designed research, performed research, analyzed data, and wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1814782116/-/DCSupplemental.
Published under the PNAS license.
