Long-term nitrogen fertilization alters microbial respiration sensitivity to temperature and moisture, potentially enhancing soil carbon retention in a boreal Scots pine forest

Ťupek, Boris; Lehtonen, Aleksi; Manzoni, Stefano; Bruni, Elisa; Baldrian, Petr; Richy, Etienne; Adamczyk, Bartosz; Guenet, Bertrand; Mäkipää, Raisa

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-5497-2025

Articles | Volume 22, issue 19

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-5497-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-5497-2025

© Author(s) 2025. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 22, issue 19

Research article

|

10 Oct 2025

Research article |

| 10 Oct 2025

Long-term nitrogen fertilization alters microbial respiration sensitivity to temperature and moisture, potentially enhancing soil carbon retention in a boreal Scots pine forest

Boris Ťupek, Aleksi Lehtonen, Stefano Manzoni, Elisa Bruni, Petr Baldrian, Etienne Richy, Bartosz Adamczyk, Bertrand Guenet, and Raisa Mäkipää

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-22-5497-2025-supplement

Data sets

Soil and understory CO2 respiration, CH4, and N2O fluxes, tree biomass and litter, and soil carbon stock after a long-term N fertilization of a Scots pine forest in Finland B. Ťupek et al. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13952779

Model code and software

R script: Reduced microbial respiration sensitivity to soil moisture following long-term N fertilization enhances soil carbon retention in a boreal Scots pine forest B. Ťupek https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14101489

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Short summary

We explored soil microbial respiration (R_h) kinetics of low-dose and long-term N fertilization in N-limited boreal forest in connection with CH₄ and N₂O fluxes and soil and tree C sinks. The insights show that N fertilization affects C retention in boreal forest soils by modifying R_hsensitivities to soil temperature and moisture. The key findings reveal that N-enriched soils exhibited reduced sensitivity of R_hto moisture, which contributed to enhanced soil C sequestration on an annual level.