Arctic fires release nitrogen, but warming plants can't fully capture it
A new study in West Greenland reveals that post-fire nitrogen in Arctic tundra largely escapes into the environment rather than fueling plant recovery, even as warming accelerates. The finding challenges assumptions about natural nutrient cycling and suggests climate change may not offset vegetation losses from increasingly frequent Arctic fires.
Originaltitel: Effects of warming on plant uptake of post‐fire nitrogen in an arctic heath tundra
Summary Postfire nitrogen (N) becomes increasingly important with the rising frequency of fires in arctic tundra, and climate warming is expected to accelerate plant recovery following fire. However, how plants differ in utilizing this postfire N and how their postfire N uptake responds to warming remains unknown. We conducted a fire experiment in combination with a warming treatment using open top chambers (OTCs) in an arctic heath tundra, West Greenland. We investigated the longer‐term fate of two postfire N forms by tracing inorganic N ( 15 NH 4 + ‐N and 15 NO 3 − ‐N) and pyrogenic N pools (PyOM‐ 15 N) and examined how postfire N was acquired by vegetation at functional group‐ and species‐specific levels. Most postfire inorganic and pyrogenic 15 N (> 67%) was lost over the 4 yr following the fire, indicating limited N fertilization effects on plant recovery. Warming increased moss aboveground biomass and thus enhanced moss uptake of PyOM‐ 15 N. By contrast, warming increased the capacity of graminoids to take up inorganic 15 N (+200%), despite their unchanged aboveground biomass. Our results show that warming alters postfire N cycling by shifting the pathways through which different plant functional groups access fire‐derived N, with important implications for vegetation recovery and nutrient feedbacks in a warmer, more fire‐prone Arctic.