How do different nitrogen application levels and irrigation practices impact biological nitrogen fixation and its distribution in paddy system?

Plant and Soil - Although phytolith analysis is a promising tool for reconstructing the palaeovegetation in grassland ecosystems, no phytolith study has yet attempted to quantitatively reconstruct...     

A projection of ozone‐induced wheat production loss in China and India for the years 2000 and 2020 with exposure‐based and flux‐based approaches

Using a high‐resolution (40 × 40 km) chemical transport model coupled with the Regional Emission inventory in Asia (REAS), we simulated surface ozone concentrations ([O₃]) and evaluated O₃‐induced wheat production loss in China and India for the years 2000 and 2020 using dose–response functions based on AOT40 (accumulated [O₃] above 40 ppb) and POD_Y (phytotoxic O₃ dose, accumulated stomatal flux of O₃ above a threshold of Y nmol m^?2 s^?1). Two O₃ dose metrics (90 days AOT40 and POD₆) were derived from European experiments, and the other two (75 days AOT40 and POD₁₂) were adapted from Asian studies. Relative yield loss (RYL) of wheat in 2000 was estimated to be 6.4–14.9% for China and 8.2–22.3% for India. POD₆ predicted greater RYL, especially for the warm regions of India, whereas the 90 days AOT40 gave the lowest estimates. For the future projection, all the O₃ dose metrics gave comparable estimates of an increase in RYL from 2000 to 2020 in the range 8.1–9.4% and 5.4–7.7% for China and India, respectively. The lower projected increase in RYL for India may be due to conservative estimation of the emission increase in 2020. Sensitivity tests of the model showed that the POD_Y‐based estimates of RYL are highly sensitive to perturbations in the meteorological inputs, but that the estimated increase in RYL from 2000 to 2020 is much more robust. The projected increase in wheat production loss in China and India in the near future is substantially larger than the uncertainties in the estimation and indicates an urgent need for curbing the rapid increase in surface [O₃] in these regions.     

Comparison of crop yield sensitivity to ozone between open‐top chamber and free‐air experiments

Assessments of the impacts of ozone (O₃) on regional and global food production are currently based on results from experiments using open‐top chambers (OTCs). However, there are concerns that these impact estimates might be biased due to the environmental artifacts imposed by this enclosure system. In this study, we collated O₃ exposure and yield data for three major crop species—wheat, rice, and soybean—for which O₃ experiments have been conducted with OTCs as well as the ecologically more realistic free‐air O₃ elevation (O₃‐FACE) exposure system; both within the same cultivation region and country. For all three crops, we found that the sensitivity of crop yield to the O₃ metric AOT40 (accumulated hourly O₃ exposure above a cut‐off threshold concentration of 40 ppb) significantly differed between OTC and O₃‐FACE experiments. In wheat and rice, O₃ sensitivity was higher in O₃‐FACE than OTC experiments, while the opposite was the case for soybean. In all three crops, these differences could be linked to factors influencing stomatal conductance (manipulation of water inputs, passive chamber warming, and cultivar differences in gas exchange). Our study thus highlights the importance of accounting for factors that control stomatal O₃ flux when applying experimental data to assess O₃ impacts on crops at large spatial scales.     

Effects of elevated ozone concentration on CH4 and N2O emission from paddy soil under fully open‐air field conditions

We investigated the effects of elevated ozone concentration (E‐O₃) on CH₄ and N₂O emission from paddies with two rice cultivars: an inbred Indica cultivar Yangdao 6 (YD6) and a hybrid one II‐you 084 (IIY084), under fully open‐air field conditions in China. A mean 26.7% enhancement of ozone concentration above the ambient level (A‐O₃) significantly reduced CH₄ emission at tillering and flowering stages leading to a reduction of seasonal integral CH₄ emission by 29.6% on average across the two cultivars. The reduced CH₄ emission is associated with O₃‐induced reduction in the whole‐plant biomass (?13.2%), root biomass (?34.7%), and maximum tiller number (?10.3%), all of which curbed the carbon supply for belowground CH₄ production and its release from submerged soil to atmosphere. Although no significant difference was detected between the cultivars in the CH₄ emission response to E‐O₃, a larger decrease in CH₄ emission with IIY084 (?33.2%) than that with YD6 (?7.0%) was observed at tillering stage, which may be due to the larger reduction in tiller number in IIY084 by E‐O₃. Additionally, E‐O₃ reduced seasonal mean NO_x flux by 5.7% and 11.8% with IIY084 and YD6, respectively, but the effects were not significant statistically. We found that the relative response of CH₄ emission to E‐O₃ was not significantly different from those reported in open‐top chamber experiments. This study has thus confirmed that increasing ozone concentration would mitigate the global warming potential of CH₄ and suggested consideration of the feedback mechanism between ozone and its precursor emission into the projection of future ozone effects on terrestrial ecosystem.