Dozens of studies have demonstrated that nitrogen pollution, due mainly to the burning of fossil fuels and agricultural practices, is causing plant biodiversity losses worldwide.
Dozens of studies have demonstrated that nitrogen pollution, due mainly to the burning of fossil fuels and agricultural practices, is causing plant biodiversity losses worldwide.
But whether rising levels of climate-warming carbon dioxide gas are amplifying those nitrogen-induced biodiversity losses or dampening them remains unclear and is an understudied topic.
The newly published findings of an ecologically realistic 24-year field study involving 108 experimental grassland plots in Minnesota provide an answer that doesn’t bode well for biodiversity conservation efforts—at least for grasslands.
Read more at: University of Michigan
A researcher collects soil samples for the BioCON experiment, which ran for more than 20 years. (Photo Credit: Jacob Miller)
