Nutrient Pollution Threatens National Park Ecosystems

Caroline Maxwell

Article Url:  http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-national-park-fertilize-nitrogen-air-pollution-20131014,0,6264129.story  

Published: By Tony Barboza October 14, 2013

Summary: The article is about park in the Sierra Nevada and the Great Smoky Mountain Ranges in Eastern U.S. The mountains are being fertilized by an increasing amount of nitrogen. More than a third of the parks are getting too great a amount for the ecosystem to survive. Plants, such as lichen, forests, and prairie grasses could be affected. Air pollution regulation have been cleaning up the amount of nitrogen oxides, but ammonia, another gas made of mostly nitrogen is not decreasing. In automobiles, nitrogen amounts are estimated to decrease 75% as of 2050, which is fantastic for air pollution. On the down side, the agriculture industry will use almost double because as the population grows, the need for more livestock and plants also increases. 

Relevance: We learned about the nitrogen cycle when we learned about ecosystems this year. As we know, nitrogen is essential for the plants to grow, but like the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle becomes harmful if there is too much in the atmosphere. The things that may possibly happen to these parks are that the pH could lower, a rise of non-native species that loves the nitrogen could emerge, and the nutrients in the soil could be disrupted due to the increase of nitrates in the soil. Too much of anything in the atmosphere has negative consequences.