Abstract
Fire is a major disturbance in shrubland ecosystems of the Mediterranean basin, with high potential to alter ecosystem nitrogen (N) stocks and N cycling. However, postfire effects on gross rates of soil N turnover (ammonification, nitrification, microbial immobilization, denitrification) have rarely been investigated. We determined gross rates of N turnover including nitrous oxide fluxes and dinitrogen emissions in the mineral soil of unburned and burned shrublands of Southern Italy 6 months after a natural fire. In soil of burned plots, both gross ammonification and gross nitrification were significantly higher than in soil of unburned plots (2.2 ± 0.3 versus 0.6 ± 0.1 mg N kg−1 sdw day−1 for ammonification and 1.1 ± 0.1 versus 0.5 ± 0.1 mg N kg−1 sdw day−1 for nitrification). Microbial immobilization, in particular of nitrate, could not compensate for the increase in inorganic N production, therefore soil nitrate concentrations were considerably higher at the burned plots. Soil microbial biomass carbon and nitrogen concentrations were significantly lower in soils of burned plots than in soils of unburned plots. Dinitrogen was the dominant end product of denitrification and emitted at higher rates from the unburned plots than from the burned plots (0.094 ± 0.003 versus 0.004 ± 0.002 mg N kg−1 sdw day−1, while there was no net nitrous oxide flux (burned plots) or slight net nitrous oxide uptake (control plots). These results show that postfire patterns of gross N turnover in soil can exhibit a significant reduction of both microbial N retention and N gas losses via denitrification.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anderson IC, Poth MA (1998) Controls of fluxes of trace Gases from Brazilina Cerrado soils. J Environ Qual 27:1117–1124
Andersson M, Michelsen A, Jensen M, Kjoller A (2004a) Tropical savannah woodland: effects of experimental fire on soil microorganisms and soil emissions of carbon dioxide. Soil Biol Biochem 36:849–858
Andersson M, Michelsen A, Jensen M, Kjoller A, Gashew M (2004b) Carbon stock, soil respiration and microbial biomass in fire-prone tropical grassland, woodland and forest ecosystems. Soil Biol Biochem 36:1707–1717
Bastias BA, Huang ZQ, Blumfield T, Xu Z, Cairney JWG (2006) Influence of repeated prescribed burning on the soil fungal community in an eastern Australien wet sclerophyll forest. Soil Biol Biochem 38:3492–3501
Booth MS, Stark JM, Rastetter E (2005) Controls on nitrogen cycling in terrestrial ecosystems: a synthetic analysis of literature data. Ecol Monogr 75:139–157
Borken W, Matzner E (2008) Reappraisal of drying and wetting effects on C and N mineralization and fluxes in soils. Global Change Biol 14:1–17
Brookes PC, Landman A, Pruden G, Jenkinson DS (1985) Chloroform fumigation and the release of soil nitrogen: a rapid direct extraction method for measuring microbial biomass nitrogen in soil. Soil Biol Biochem 17:837–842
Brooks PD, Stark JM, McInteer BB, Preston T (1989) Diffusion method to prepare soil extracts for automated nitrogen-15 analysis. Soil Sci Soc Am J 53:1707–1711
Butterbach-Bahl K, Willibald G, Papen H (2002) Soil core method for direct simultaneous determination of N2 and N2O emissions from forest soils. Plant Soil 240:105–111
Castaldi S, Aragosa D (2002) Factors influencing nitrification and denitrification variability in natural and fire-disturbed Mediterranean shrubland. Biol Fertil Soils 36:418–425
Castaldi S, Carfora A, Fiorentino A, Natale A, Messere A, Miglietta F, Cotrufo MF (2009) Inhibition of net nitrification activity in a Mediterranean woodland: possible role of chemicals produced by Arbutus unedo. Plant Soil 315:273–283
Certini G (2005) Effects of fire on properties of forest soils: a review. Oecologia 143:1–10
Chapuis-Lardy L, Wrage N, Metay A, Chotte J-L, Bernoux M (2007) Soils, a sink for N2O? A review. Global Change Biol 13:1–17
Conrad R (1996) Soil microorganisms as controllers of atmospheric trace gases (H2, CO, CH4, OCS, N2O and NO). Microbiol Rev 60:609–640
Dannenmann M, Gasche R, Ledebuhr A, Papen H (2006) Effects of forest management on soil N cycling in beech forests stocking on calcareous soils. Plant Soil 287:279–300
Dannenmann M, Gasche R, Papen H (2007) Nitrogen turnover and N2O production in the forest floor of beech stands as influenced by forest management. J Plant Nutr Soil Sci 170:134–144
Dannenmann M, Butterbach-Bahl K, Gasche R, Willibald G, Papen H (2008) Dinitrogen emissions and the N2: N2O emission ratio of a Rendzic Leptosol as influenced by pH and forest thinning. Soil Biol Biochem 40:2317–2323
Dannenmann M, Simon J, Gasche R, Holst J, Pena R, Naumann PS, Kögel-Knabner I, Knicker H, Mayer H, Schloter M, Polle A, Rennenberg H, Papen H (2009) Tree girdling provides insight on the role of labile carbon in nitrogen partitioning between soil microorganisms and adult European beech. Soil Biol Biochem 41:1622–1631
Davidson EA, Seitzinger S (2006) The Enigma of progress in denitrification research. Ecol Appl 16:2057–2063
Davidson EA, Hart SC, Shanks CA, Firestone MK (1991) Measuring gross nitrogen mineralization, immobilization, and nitrification by 15N isotopic pool dilution in intact soil cores. J Soil Sci 42:335–349
Davidson EA, Hart SC, Firestone MK (1992) Internal cycling of nitrate in soils of a mature coniferous forest. Ecology 73:1148–1156
DeLuca TH, MacKenzie MJ, Gundale MJ, Holben WE (2006) Wildfire-produced charcoal directly influences Nitrogen cycling in Ponderosa pine forests. Soil Sci Soc Am J 70:448–453
Eno CF (1960) Nitrate production in the field by incubating the soil in polyethylene bags. Soil Sci Soc Am Proc 24:277–279
Gallardo A, Merino J (1992) Nitrogen immobilization in leaf litter at two Mediterranean ecosystems of SW Spain. Biogeochemistry 15:213–228
Galloway JN, Aber JD, Erisman JW, Seitzinger SP, Howarth RW, Cowling EB, Cosby BJ (2003) The nitrogen cascade. Bioscience 53:341–356
Galloway JN, Dentner FJ, Capone DG, Boyer EW, Howarth RW, Seitzinger SP, Asner GP, Cleveland CC, Green PA, Holland EA, Karl DM, Michaels AF, Porter JH, Townsend AR, Vöösmarty CJ (2004) Nitrogen cycles: past, present and future. Biogeochemistry 70:153–226
Groffman PM, Altabet MA, Böhlke JK, Butterbach-Bahl K, David MB, Firestone MK, Giblin AE, Kana TM, Nielsen LP, Voytek MA (2006) Methods for measuring denitrification: diverse approaches to a difficult problem. Ecol Appl 16:2057–2063
Kirkham D, Bartholomew WV (1954) Equations for following nutrient transformations in soil utilizing tracer data. Soil Sci Soc Am Proc 18:33–34
Knicker H (2007) How does fire affect the nature and stability of soil organic nitrogen and carbon? A review. Biogeochemistry 85:91–118
Lavorel S, Canadell J, Rambal S, Terrads J (1998) Mediterranean terrestrial ecosystems: research priorities on global change effects. Global Ecol Biogeogr Lett 7:157–416
LeDuc SD, Rothstein DE (2007) Initial recovery of soil carbon and nitrogen pools and dynamics following disturbance in jack pine forests: a comparison of wildfire and clearcut harvesting. Soil Biol Biochem 39:2865–2876
Marion GM, Moreno JM, Oechsel WC (1991) Fire severity, ash deposition, and clippig effects on soil nutrients in Chaparral. Soil Sci Soc Am J 55:235–240
Moreno JM, Oechel WC (1995) The role of fire in Mediterranean-type ecosystems. Ecological studies, vol 107. Springer, New York
Murphy DV, Recous S, Stockdale EA, Fillery IRP, Jensen LS, Hatch DJ, Goulding KWT (2003) Gross nitrogen fluxes in soil: Theory, measurement and application of N-15 pool dilution techniques. Adv Agron 79:69–118
Piñol J, Terradas J, Lloret F (1998) Climate warming, wildfire hazard, and wildfire occurrence in coastal eastern Spain. Clim Change 39:345–357
Ravishankara AR, Daniel JS, Portmann RW (2009) Nitrous oxide (N2O): The dominant ozone-depleting substance emitted in the 21st Century. Science 326:123
Rennenberg H, Dannenmann M, Gessler A, Kreuzwieser J, Simon J, Papen H (2009) Nitrogen balance in forest soils: nutritional limitation of plants under climate change stresses. Plant Biol 11:4–23
Robertson LA, Cornelisse R, De Vos P, Hadioetomo R, Kuenen JG (1989) Aerobic denitrification in various heterotrophic nitrifiers. Antonie Leeuwenhoek 56:289–299
Robertson LA, Dalsgaard T, Revsbeck NP, Kuenen JG (1995) Confirmation of ‘aerobic denitrification’ in batch cultures, using gaschromatography and 15N mass spectrometry. FEMS Microb Ecol 18:113–120
Rosenkranz P, Brüggemann N, Papen H, Xu Z, Seufert G, Butterbach-Bahl K (2006) N2O, NO and CH4 exchange, and microbial N turnover over a Mediterranean pine forest soil. Biogeosciences 3:121–133
Scalbert A (1991) Antimicrobial properties of tannins. Phytochemistry 30:3875–3883
Schimel JP, Bennett J (2004) Nitrogen mineralization: challenges of a changing paradigm. Ecology 85:591–602
Silver WL, Herman DJ, Firestone MK (2001) Dissimilatroy nitrate reduction to ammonium in upland tropical forest soils. Ecology 82:2410–2416
Stark JM (2000) Nutrient transformations. In: Sala OE, Jackson RB, Mooney HA, Howarth RW (eds) Methods in ecosystem science. Springer, New York
Vance ED, Brookes PC, Jenkinson DS (1987) An extraction method for measuring soil microbial biomass C. Soil Biol Biochem 19:703–707
Wrage N, Velthof GL, Van Beusichem ML, Oenema O (2001) Role of nitrifier denitrification in the production of nitrous oxide. Soil Biol Biochem 33:1723–1732
Acknowledgements
Funding of this work by the European Union (NitroEurope IP) and the German Research Foundation (DFG, contract number DA 1217/2-1) is gratefully acknowledged. We are indebted to Francesa Cotrufo, Simona Castaldi and Andrea Venturi for logistic support, help in the site identification and soil sampling. Furthermore we wish to thank Elisabeth Zumbusch for help with the laboratory work and Rudi Meyer for technical support during IRMS analyses.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Responsible Editor: Per Ambus.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dannenmann, M., Willibald, G., Sippel, S. et al. Nitrogen dynamics at undisturbed and burned Mediterranean shrublands of Salento Peninsula, Southern Italy. Plant Soil 343, 5–15 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-010-0541-9
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11104-010-0541-9