Spatiotemporal Variations of Soil Reactive Nitrogen Oxide Fluxes across the Anthropogenic Landscape

Abstract

Volatile reactive nitrogen oxides (NOy) are significant atmospheric pollutants, including NOx (nitric oxide [NO] + nitrogen dioxide [NO2]) and NOz (nitrous acid [HONO] + nitric acid [HNO3] + nitrogen trioxide [NO3] + …). NOy species are products of nitrogen (N) cycle processes, particularly nitrification and denitrification. Biogenic sources, including soil, account for over 50% of natural NOy emissions to the atmosphere, yet emissions from soils are generally not included in atmospheric models as a result of a lack of mechanistic data. This work is a unique investigation of NOy fluxes on a landscape scale, taking a comprehensive set of land-use types, human influence, and seasonality into account to determine large-scale heterogeneity to provide a basis for future modeling and hypothesis generation. By coupling 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and quantitative polymerase chain reaction, we have linked significant differences in functional potential and activity of nitrifying and denitrifying soil microbes to NOy emissions from soils. Further, we have identified soils subject to increased N deposition that are less microbially active despite increased available N, potentially as a result of poor soil health from anthropogenic pollution. Structural equation modeling suggests human influence on soils to be a more significant effector of soil NOy emissions than land-use type.