Dust outpaces bedrock in nutrient supply to montane forest ecosystems.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 28348371.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/ncomms14800 and PMC identifier 5379052.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Dust provides ecosystem-sustaining nutrients to landscapes underlain by intensively weathered soils. Here we show that dust may also be crucial in montane forest ecosystems, dominating nutrient budgets despite continuous replacement of depleted soils with fresh bedrock via erosion. Strontium and neodymium isotopes in modern dust show that Asian sources contribute 18-45% of dust deposition across our Sierra Nevada, California study sites. The remaining dust originates regionally from the nearby Central Valley. Measured dust fluxes are greater than or equal to modern erosional outputs from hillslopes to channels, and account for 10-20% of estimated millennial-average inputs of bedrock P. Our results demonstrate that exogenic dust can drive the evolution of nutrient budgets in montane ecosystems, with implications for predicting forest response to changes in climate and land use.