Nitrate is an important nitrogen source for Arctic tundra plants

© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.of the United States of America 115 (2018): 3398-3403, doi:10.1073/pnas.1715382115.Plant nitrogen (N) use is a key component of the N cycle in terrestrial ecosystems. The supply of N to plants affects community species composition and ecosystem processes such as photosynthesis and carbon (C) accumulation. However, the availabilities and relative importance of different N forms to plants are not well understood. While nitrate (NO3−) is a major N form used by plants worldwide, it is discounted as a N source for Arctic tundra plants because of extremely low NO3− concentrations in Arctic tundra soils, undetectable soil nitrification, and plant-tissue NO3− that is typically below detection limits. Here we reexamine NO3− use by tundra plants using a sensitive denitrifier method to analyze plant-tissue NO3−. Soil-derived NO3− was detected in tundra plant tissues, and tundra plants took up soil NO3− at comparable rates to plants from relatively NO3−-rich ecosystems in other biomes. Nitrate assimilation determined by 15N enrichments of leaf NO3− relative to soil NO3− accounted for 4 to 52% (as estimated by a Bayesian isotope-mixing model) of species-specific total leaf N of Alaskan tundra plants. Our finding that in situ soil NO3− availability for tundra plants is high has important implications for Arctic ecosystems, not only in determining species compositions, but also in determining the loss of N from soils via leaching and denitrification. Plant N uptake and soil N losses can strongly influence C uptake and accumulation in tundra soils. Accordingly, this evidence of NO3− availability in tundra soils is crucial for predicting C storage in tundra.his study was supported by the Kyoto University Foundation, the Sumitomo Foundation, Program for Next Generation World-Leading Researcher (Grant GS008) and Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI Grants 26252020, 26550004, 17H06297, and P09316) from the Japan Society for Promotion of Science, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants 41730855, 41522301, and 41473081), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grants 2016YFA0600802 and 2017YFC0210101), and the 11th Recruitment Program of Global Experts (the Thousand Talents Plan) for Young Professionals granted by the central budget of China