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Increased carbon cost for nitrogen assimilation in plants under a warming climate

Nature Geoscience volume 18, pages 1133–1137 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Nitrogen (N) assimilation consumes carbon (C) in plants, and climate warming can alter soil N availability, thereby affecting plant N assimilation and associated C costs. However, the global C cost of N assimilation in terrestrial plants has long been unconstrained, and its warming response remains uncertain. Here we constructed a modelling framework of plant C costs for nitrate, ammonium and extractable organic N assimilation and assessed global C costs of plant N assimilation. Globally, the C costs for plant N assimilation were 208 ± 12 and 249 ± 15 TgC yr−1 under the present-day and 2.0 °C warming scenarios, respectively, which exceed the C emissions caused by deforestation and degradation fires and are comparable to the forest C fixed by atmospheric N deposition. Under the warming scenario, the global C cost would increase by 47% (41 ± 19 TgC yr−1), with a greater percentage increase at higher latitudes, due partly to enhanced contributions and C cost of soil inorganic N. We conclude that the C cost for N assimilation in terrestrial plants should be incorporated into global C budgets, while its positive response to warming would improve predictions of terrestrial C-cycle feedbacks to global warming.

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Fig. 1: Gross C costs for the N assimilation of global terrestrial plants.
Fig. 2: Latitudinal variations of the C cost for TN assimilation of terrestrial plants.
Fig. 3: Schematic effects of the 2.0 °C climate warming on the C costs for N assimilation in global terrestrial plants.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42125301, 42221001, 42330505 and 42473081) and the Guizhou province ‘Hundred-Thousand-Ten Thousand’ Leading Talent Team (2025) Project (QianKeHe Talent BQW [2025] 007). Thanks to H.-R. Li and W.-G. Fan for their help on data analysis.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Geochemistry, Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guiyang, China

    Chao-Chen Hu & Xue-Yan Liu

  2. State Key Laboratory of Climate System Prediction and Risk Management, Jiangsu Collaborative Innovation Center of Atmospheric Environment and Equipment Technology, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing, China

    Chen-Guang Tian & Xu Yue

  3. School of Earth System Science, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China

    Chong-Juan Chen, Wei Song & Xue-Yan Liu

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  1. Chao-Chen Hu
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  2. Chen-Guang Tian
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Contributions

X.-Y.L. designed the research. C.-C.H. and X.-Y.L. conducted the research and co-wrote the manuscript. X.Y., C.-G.T., C.-J.C. and W.S. commented on the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Xue-Yan Liu.

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Nature Geoscience thanks the anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work. Primary Handling Editors: Stefan Lachowycz and Carolina Ortiz Guerrero, in collaboration with the Nature Geoscience team.

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Source Data Figs. 1 and 2 (download XLSX )

The raw data underlying the findings of this study are provided in the Source Data file.

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Hu, CC., Tian, CG., Chen, CJ. et al. Increased carbon cost for nitrogen assimilation in plants under a warming climate. Nat. Geosci. 18, 1133–1137 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01816-y

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