Nitric oxide and nitrous oxide emission from Hungarian forest soils; linked with atmospheric N-deposition

Studies of forest nitrogen (N) budgets generally measure inputs from the atmosphere in wet and dry deposition and outputs via hydrologic export. Although denitrification has been shown to be important in many wetland ecosystems, emission of N oxides from forest soils is an important, and often overlooked, component of an ecosystem N budget. During 1 year (2002–03), emissions of nitric oxide (NO) and nitrous oxide (N2O) were measured from Sessile oak and Norway spruce forest soils in northeast Hungary. Accumulation in small static chambers followed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry detection was used for the estimation of N2O emission flux. Because there are rapid chemical reactions of NO and ozone, small dynamic chambers were used for in situ NO flux measurements. Average soil emissions of NO were 1.2 and 2.1 μg N m−2 h−1, and for N2O were 15 and 20 μg N m−2 h−1, for spruce and oak soils, respectively. Due to the relatively high soil water content, and low C/N ratio in soil, denitrification processes dominate, resulting in an order of magnitude greater N2O emission rate compared to NO. The previously determined N balance between the atmosphere and the forest ecosystem was re-calculated using these soil emission figures. The total (dry+wet) atmospheric N-deposition to the soil was 1.42 and 1.59 g N m−2 yr−1 for spruce and oak, respectively, while the soil emissions are 0.14 and 0.20 g N m−2 yr−1. Thus, about 10–13% of N compounds deposited to the soil, mostly as NH3/NH4+ and HNO3/NO3-, were transformed in the soil and emitted back to the atmosphere, mostly as greenhouse gas (N2O).