Estimated losses of plant biodiversity in the United States from historical N deposition (1985-2010)

Although nitrogen (N) deposition is a significant threat to herbaceous plant biodiversity worldwide, it is not a new stressor for many developed regions. Only recently has it become possible to estimate historical impacts nationally for the United States. We used 26 years (1985-2010) of deposition d...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ecology (Durham) 2013-07, Vol.94 (7), p.1441-1448
Main Authors: Clark, Christopher M, Morefield, Philip E, Gilliam, Frank S, Pardo, Linda H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animal and plant ecology
Animal, plant and microbial ecology
Animals
Biodiversity
Biological and medical sciences
critical load
critical loads
ecoregion
Ecoregions
Ecosystems
Environmental agencies
Environmental Pollutants - chemistry
Environmental Pollutants - toxicity
Experimental forests
Extinction, Biological
field experimentation
Flowers & plants
Forest ecology
forests
Functional responses
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
General aspects
herbaceous
herbaceous plants
Mountain forests
mountains
Nitrogen
Nitrogen - chemistry
Nitrogen - toxicity
nitrogen deposition
Plant biodiversity
Plant ecology
refining
Species
Synecology
Time Factors
uncertainty
United States
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Summary:Although nitrogen (N) deposition is a significant threat to herbaceous plant biodiversity worldwide, it is not a new stressor for many developed regions. Only recently has it become possible to estimate historical impacts nationally for the United States. We used 26 years (1985-2010) of deposition data, with ecosystem-specific functional responses from local field experiments and a national critical loads (CL) database, to generate scenario-based estimates of herbaceous species loss. Here we show that, in scenarios using the low end of the CL range, N deposition exceeded critical loads over 0.38, 6.5, 13.1, 88.6, and 222.1 million ha for the Mediterranean California, North American Desert, Northwestern Forested Mountains, Great Plains, and Eastern Forest ecoregions, respectively, with corresponding species losses ranging from
ISSN:0012-9658
1939-9170
DOI:10.1890/12-2016.1