Professor MO Jiangming and his research team from South China Botanical Garden, CAS found that nitrogen addition reduces soil respiration in a mature tropical forest of southern China. This finding has recently been reported in Global Change Biology (Mo et al., 2008, 14: 403-412). This finding is consistent with the previous result of litter decomposition experiment conducted at the same site, where nitrogen addition was shown to decreases litter decomposition rate (Mo et al., Plant and Soil, 2006, 282: 135-151).
These findings above imply that elevated N deposition may drive accumulation of soil carbon in the studied mature forest, and thus can partially explain the reason for the accumulation of soil carbon over two decades observed by Zhou et al. (Science, 2006, 314: 1417) at the same site. In addition, these findings also suggest that with increasing atmospheric nitrogen deposition, mature forests will probably play an important role in mitigating atmospheric CO2 increase.