Nitrogen Pollution Is Linked to US Listed Species Declines

Nitrogen (N) pollution is increasingly recognized as a threat to biodiversity. However, our understanding of how N is affecting vulnerable species across taxa and broad spatial scales is limited. We surveyed approximately 1400 species in the continental United States listed as candidate, threatened,...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Bioscience 2016-03, Vol.66 (3), p.213-222
Main Authors: HERNÁNDEZ, DANIEL L., VALLANO, DENA M., ZAVALETA, ERIKA S., TZANKOVA, ZDRAVKA, PASARI, JAE R., WEISS, STUART, SELMANTS, PAUL C., MOROZUMI, CORINNE
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aquatic ecosystems
Biodiversity
Endangered species
Grasslands
Nitrogen
Nonnative species
Overview Articles
Pollution
Pollution effects
Taxonomy
Threatened species
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Nitrogen (N) pollution is increasingly recognized as a threat to biodiversity. However, our understanding of how N is affecting vulnerable species across taxa and broad spatial scales is limited. We surveyed approximately 1400 species in the continental United States listed as candidate, threatened, or endangered under the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) to assess the extent of recognized N-pollution effects on biodiversity in both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. We found 78 federally listed species recognized as affected by N pollution. To illustrate the complexity of tracing N impacts on listed species, we describe an interdisciplinary case study that addressed the threat of N pollution to California Bay Area serpentine grasslands. We demonstrate that N pollution has affected threatened species via multiple pathways and argue that existing legal and policy regulations can be applied to address the biodiversity consequences of N pollution in conjunction with scientific evidence tracing N impact pathways.
ISSN:0006-3568
1525-3244
DOI:10.1093/biosci/biw003