Impacts of land-use change on carbon and nitrogen cycling: a cross-site opportunity

Working Group Reports

Final reports: 

Report of LTER ASM Working Group.pdf

Increasing human demands for food, energy, and space has resulted in the conversion of forest and grasslands to intensively used lands. Although there have been many studies on the impacts of land-use change on carbon and nitrogen cycling, it is often difficult to compare results across sitesbecause of diverse experimental designs and protocols. The purpose of this workshop is to explore whether there is an interest in forming a network of diverse LTER sites and to discuss the experimental protocols we use and the possibility of sharing data.With such a network we could answer a wide range of questions on the impacts of land-use change on carbon and nitrogen cycling, on a national or global scale.

The working group will begin with 10-15-minute oral presentations, tentatively:

1. A brief overview of the conversion of CRP land to biofuels. (IIya Gelfand)
2. Impacts of the CRP land conversion on GHG emissions under no-till practices (Leilei Ruan)
3. Direct observation of CO₂, H₂O and energy fluxes during land conversion using the Eddy covariance technique (Terenzio Zenone)
4. Carbon credits or nitrogen credits ( Neville Millar)

The remaining time will be open for discussionon experimental design and protocols (soil, plant, microbial and greenhouse gas sampling), data sharing policy, and other relevant topics.