Nutrient Cycling and Limitation: Hawai'i as a Model System

by Peter M. Vitousek

Overview

The availability or lack of nutrients shapes ecosystems in fundamental ways. From forest productivity to soil fertility, from the diversity of animals to the composition of microbial communities, nutrient cycling and limitation are the basic mechanisms underlying ecosystem ecology. In this book, Peter Vitousek builds on over twenty years of research in Hawai'i to evaluate the controls and consequences of variation in nutrient availability and limitation.

Integrating research from geochemistry, pedology, atmospheric chemistry, ecophysiology, and ecology, Vitousek addresses fundamental questions: How do the cycles of different elements interact? How do biological processes operating in minutes or hours interact with geochemical processes operating over millions of years? How does biological diversity interact with nutrient cycling and limitation in ecosystems? The Hawaiian Islands provide the author with an excellent model system for answering these questions as he integrates across levels of biological organization. He evaluates the connections between plant nutrient use efficiency, nutrient cycling and limitation within ecosystems, and nutrient input-output budgets of ecosystems.

This book makes use of the Hawaiian ecosystems to explore the mechanisms that shape productivity and diversity in ecosystems throughout the world. It will be essential reading for all ecologists and environmental scientists.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691190341
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/26/2018
Series:	Princeton Environmental Institute Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	232
File size:	21 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Peter M. Vitousek is Clifford G. Morrison Professor of Population and Resource Studies at Stanford University.

Read an Excerpt

Nutrient Cycling and Limitation:
Hawai'i as a Model System

Peter M. Vitousek

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

THIS BOOK brings together my two strongest interests in research: understanding nutrient cycling and limitation in terrestrial ecosystems, and understanding the ecosystems of the Hawaiian Islands. I have been fascinated by nutrient cycling and limitation since I chose to pursue a research career in ecology in 1970. I followed that fascination through analyses of temperate forest ecosystems and human influences on them, learning the dynamics of particular forests in New Hampshire, Indiana, North Carolina, and California as I moved through graduate school and a succession of university positions in those states. I worked in continental tropical forests in Costa Rica, Brazil, and Mexico, and led cross-site comparative analyses and syntheses of nutrient cycling in forest ecosystems. Shortly after moving to Stanford University in 1984, I began research in the Hawaiian Islands--where I had always intended to work, someday--and since then my research has been increasingly, now almost exclusively, focused there.

Why Hawai'i, and why nutrient cycling and limitation? The personal reasons for Hawai'i are easy to explain. I was born and brought up in Hawai'i, and most of my family remains there. It is the place I am most at home, with both land and culture. However, that sense of place is not a sufficient reason for devoting most of my research to Hawai'i, even though "a feeling for the land" does contribute substantially to that research. Still less is it sufficient reason for any agency or foundation to support my research. Part of the reason Ihave worked so actively in Hawai'i, and the main reason I have been able to do so, is that the Hawaiian Islands represent an extraordinary model system for the analysis of many ecosystem properties and processes. Chapters 2 and 3 develop this part of the answer to "why Hawai'i?"; they explain the concept of model systems and its application in other fields, and they show how features of islands in general--and the Hawaiian Islands in particular--make them useful model systems for answering a broad range of ecological questions.

Why I am interested in nutrient cycling and limitation is more difficult to explain--why do any of us choose the broad research areas we do? Having made my choice, though, it is easy to explain why understanding nutrient cycling and limitation is both interesting and important.

Table of Contents

	List of Tables	xi
	List of Figures	xiii
	Preface	xix
Chapter 1	Introduction	1
Chapter 2	The Hawaiian Islands as a Model Ecosystem	6
	Model Systems	6
	Microcosms and Well-studied Systems	8
	A Brief Natural History	9
	The Formation of the Hawaiian Islands	9
	Determinants of Climate	15
	Isolation	19
	Evolution, Conservation, and Culture	20
	Evolution and Speciation	20
	Conservation Biology	22
	Cultural Evolution	22
Chapter 3	Gradients in Environmental Factors, Gradients in Ecosystems	24
	The State Factor Framework	24
	Environmental Gradients as Model Systems	26
	Temperature	27
	Precipitation	29
	The Mauna Loa Matrix	30
	A Substrate Age Gradient across the Hawaiian Islands	31
	Age Control	35
	Climate History	35
	Basic Features of the Gradient	39
Chapter 4	Patterns and Processes in Long-term Ecosystem Development	42
	A Theory for Nutrient Dynamics during Ecosystem Development	42
	Biogeochemical Processes on the Substrate Age Gradient	45
	Soil P Pools	45
	C and N Pools	45
	Available Nutrients	46
	Foliar Nutrients	49
	Forest Productivity	51
	Efficiencies of Resource Use	53
	Decomposition and Nutrient Regeneration	59
	Soil Organic Matter Turnover	66
	Plant-Soil-Microbial Feedbacks	66
Chapter 5	Experimental Studies of Nutrient Limitation and the Regulation of Nutrient Cycling	70
	Fertilization Experiments	71
	Nutrient Limitation	74
	Nutrient Availability and Plant-Soil-Microbial Feedback	78
	Tissue Nutrient Concentrations	78
	Productivity	78
	Resource Efficiencies	79
	Decomposition	84
	Nutrient Regeneration	87
	Controls of Plant-Soil-Microbial Feedback	87
Chapter 6	Nutrient Inputs to Hawaiian Ecosystems: Pathways, Rates, and Controls	92
	Inputs of Elements	92
	Weathering	93
	Concepts and Definitions	93
	Approaches	94
	Element Inputs via Weathering	97
	Atmospheric Inputs	98
	Background	98
	Deposition Measurements	100
	Inputs of Water	101
	Nitrogen Inputs	101
	Influence of an Active Volcano	102
	Inputs of Other Elements	103
	Long-Distance Dust Transport	105
	Background	105
	Methods	105
	Element Inputs	106
	The Fate of Dust	107
	Biological N Fixation	109
	Background	109
	Approach	109
	Rates of Fixation	110
	Other Inputs	110
	Combined Inputs by All Known Pathways	111
	Strontium Isotopes: A Direct Test of Input Pathways	112
	Chloride and Sulfate	114
	Mobile Cations	114
	Silicon and Aluminum	116
	Nitrogen and Phosphorus	117
Chapter 7	Nutrient Outputs: Pathways, Controls, and Input-Output Budgets	121
	Output Pathways	122
	Leaching	122
	N-Containing Trace Gases	124
	Erosion	126
	Other Pathways of Loss	126
	Rates and Controls of N and P Losses	128
	Input-Output Budgets	133
	Budget Calculations	134
	Using These Element Budgets	142
Chapter 8	Issues and Opportunities	143
	Interactions of Time Scales	143
	An Exploratory Model	143
	Supply versus Demand	144
	Plant-Soil-Microbial Feedbacks	146
	Sources and Sinks	148
	Inputs and Outputs	150
	Interactions across Scales	152
	The Regulation of Nutrient Inputs and Outputs	154
	Demand-Independent Pathways of Element Loss	155
	Implications of Demand--Independent Nutrient Losses	159
	Stoichiometry and Flexibility	160
	Within-System Element Cycling	162
	Inputs and Outputs	169
	Biological N Fixation	173
	Differences in Populations, Species, and Diversity	177
	Biological Differences and Ecosystem Functioning	177
	Diversity and Ecosystem Functioning	184
	Three Final Points	188
	References	191
	Index	219

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Peter Vitousek is tied closely to the 'āina—the land—of Hawaii, both by birth and by the successful scientific career he has nurtured over the past two decades. His personal, and sometimes passionate, presentation sweeps across habitats, across phyla and across disciplines. It is an authoritative account of his research and his vision."—David M. Karl, University of Hawaii

Karl

Peter Vitousek is tied closely to the 'aina—the land—of Hawaii, both by birth and by the successful scientific career he has nurtured over the past two decades. His personal, and sometimes passionate, presentation sweeps across habitats, across phyla and across disciplines. It is an authoritative account of his research and his vision.
— David M. Karl, University of Hawaii

Editorial Reviews

Winner of the 2005 Marsh Ecology Book of the Year Award, British Ecological Society

"[Vitousek's] work began by understanding the interactive controls over nutrient limitation after forest disturbance. In Nutrient Cycling and Limitation, Vitousek explores this theme on a grand canvas, basing it on his own work and that of a small army of students and collaborators. . . . This book will reward reading and re-reading, and is an excellent introduction to biogeochemical ecology for those coming from other fields of science."—-David Schimel, Nature

"One of the most impressive aspects of Nutrient Cycling and Limitatio is the scope of the material it covers, and the extent to which the material is integrated to provide a truly ecosystem-level overview, that is itself placed neatly within a global context. . . . [T]he book provides a wide-ranging and authoritative coverage of a crucial topic."—-Graeme Hastwell, Austral Ecology

"Peter Vitousek's Nutrient Cycling and Limitation makes an important contribution to the field of biogeochemistry. . . . [An] excellent book. . . . Nutrient Cycling and Limitation is essential reading for students and scientists interested in terrestrial biogeochemistry. It is a model of good science writing and a crisp and clear introduction to some of the big ideas that intrigue ecosystem ecologists."—-Jerry Melillo, Bioscience

From the Publisher

Peter Vitousek's Nutrient Cycling and Limitation makes an important contribution to the field of biogeochemistry. . . . [An] excellent book. . . . Nutrient Cycling and Limitation is essential reading for students and scientists interested in terrestrial biogeochemistry. It is a model of good science writing and a crisp and clear introduction to some of the big ideas that intrigue ecosystem ecologists.

Bioscience - Jerry Melillo

One of the most impressive aspects of Nutrient Cycling and Limitatio is the scope of the material it covers, and the extent to which the material is integrated to provide a truly ecosystem-level overview, that is itself placed neatly within a global context. . . . [T]he book provides a wide-ranging and authoritative coverage of a crucial topic.

Austral Ecology - Graeme Hastwell

[Vitousek's] work began by understanding the interactive controls over nutrient limitation after forest disturbance. In Nutrient Cycling and Limitation, Vitousek explores this theme on a grand canvas, basing it on his own work and that of a small army of students and collaborators. . . . This book will reward reading and re-reading, and is an excellent introduction to biogeochemical ecology for those coming from other fields of science.

Nature - David Schimel

Peter Vitousek's Nutrient Cycling and Limitation makes an important contribution to the field of biogeochemistry. . . . [An] excellent book. . . . Nutrient Cycling and Limitation is essential reading for students and scientists interested in terrestrial biogeochemistry. It is a model of good science writing and a crisp and clear introduction to some of the big ideas that intrigue ecosystem ecologists.
— Jerry Melillo

Bioscience

One of the most impressive aspects of Nutrient Cycling and Limitatio is the scope of the material it covers, and the extent to which the material is integrated to provide a truly ecosystem-level overview, that is itself placed neatly within a global context. . . . [T]he book provides a wide-ranging and authoritative coverage of a crucial topic.
— Graeme Hastwell

Austral Ecology

[Vitousek's] work began by understanding the interactive controls over nutrient limitation after forest disturbance. In Nutrient Cycling and Limitation, Vitousek explores this theme on a grand canvas, basing it on his own work and that of a small army of students and collaborators. . . . This book will reward reading and re-reading, and is an excellent introduction to biogeochemical ecology for those coming from other fields of science.
— David Schimel

Nature