Air quality and its ecological impacts: the case of nitrogen deposition
This webinar is free and open to all.
Humans have had a vast impact on the nitrogen cycle, releasing large amounts of nitrogen into the environment. Nitrogen pollution comes from a range of sources, including fossil fuel combustion and agriculture, and it is deposited on the Earth's surface in the form of wet and dry deposition. All this excess nitrogen has had large impacts on our semi-natural plant communities and the soil that they grow in.
Nitrogen deposition enriches and acidifies soils. This has impacts on the plant community, reducing the number of plants and changing the species composition, especially in habitats where organisms are adapted to low-nutrient conditions. In turn, the changes to the plant community mean that we can see impacts further up the food chain.
This presentation will provide an overview of atmospheric nitrogen deposition and its impacts on semi-natural plant communities.
This webinar is free and open to all.
Our speaker
Professor Carly Stevens is Professor of Plant Ecology and Soil Biogeochemistry at Lancaster University. Her research is on the impacts of global change on plant communities, soil ecology, soil biogeochemistry and plant-soil interactions. In particular, her research has focused on the impacts of atmospheric nitrogen deposition on semi-natural ecosystems over the last 25 years. She has authored or co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications. She teaches at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and supervises research students.
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