Responses of Soil CO2, CH4 and N2O Fluxes to N,P, and Acid Additions in Mixed Forest in Subtropical China

Understanding how nitrogen (N) availability interacts with soil acidity and phosphorus (P) availability to affect soil-atmosphere exchanges in CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O in forest ecosystems is important for understanding the mechanisms driving ecosystem responses to enhanced N deposition. Here, we conducted an experiment with N, P and acid (H) addition in a mixed forest in subtropical China to investigate how acid and P addition affects CO₂, CH₄ and N₂O exchange under N addition. Our results showed that soil NH₄⁺-N and NO₃^--N increased after N addition, but CO₂ emissions in N addition plots remained unaffected. CH₄ uptake in N-, P-, NP-, NH- and NPH-addition plots were reduced by 21.1%, 15.7%, 39.1%, 26.6%, and 28.4%, respectively. CH₄ uptake in NP-addition plots were lower compared to N-addition and P-addition plots, indicating that N and P addition had an additive effect on inhibiting CH₄ uptake. N₂O emission in N-, NP-, NH- and NPH-addition plots increased by 158.6%, 176.0%, 117.2%, and 91.8%, respectively. N₂O emissions in NPH-addition plots were lower compared to NP-addition plots while showed no difference between N-addition and NH-addition plots. This suggests that only under P rich conditions, acid addition would greatly mitigate N₂O emissions under N addition. Our results demonstrate that for N and P co-limited forest ecosystems with acidic soils, low P availability constrains the inhibition of soil CH₄ uptake by N deposition. When P availability is low, a weak soil acidation induced by N deposition may have less influence on the stimulation of N₂O emissions by N deposition.