Nitrogen and Carbon Cycle in Agriculture

Dear Colleagues,

Agriculture strongly impacts the global carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) cycles through land-use change and the agronomic management. Unlike natural ecosystems, where the C and N cycles are generally closely coupled, in the agricultural systems farmers profoundly alter the stoichiometric relations between C and N fluxes through practices, such as soil cultivation, N fertilization, use of cover crops or N-fixing crops, and so on. This alteration determines a potential for depletion or accumulation of these two elements in agricultural soils. Thus, for example, soil processes, such as nitrate leaching or emissions of N₂O via denitrification would tend to restore stoichiometry by releasing the N in excess. Evidently, such processes can have deleterious, far-reaching consequences for the environment and human health. In this regard, agricultural soils are one of the major contributors to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, accounting for about 10–12% of total anthropogenic GHG.

Consequently, there is currently a great interest in developing agronomic practices to minimize C and N losses in order to mitigate their associated negative environmental impacts (e.g., acidification, eutrophication, and GHG emissions). An increased retention of C and N in soil could be achieved through the adoption of integrated management strategies that allow for a recoupling of C and N cycles.

This justifies the pressing urgency to expand understanding of the mechanisms and processes that regulate C and N fluxes in the agricultural systems. This knowledge is, in fact, crucial to develop agronomic practices and design management strategies that increase the efficiency of C and N cycling, which ultimately enhances the sustainability and resilience of the farming systems.

We, therefore, invite scholars to submit manuscripts (e.g., research articles, reviews, meta-analyses) that address the various aspects of C and N cycling in agriculture—from molecular to agro-ecosystem/regional/global scales. Contributions may include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

• C and N turnover in agricultural soils;
• Assessing and mitigating GHG emissions from agriculture;
• Improving C sequestration in agricultural soils;
• Improving N-use efficiency in crops;
• Managing C and N cycling to enhance ecosystem services from agriculture;
• Modeling C and N dynamics in the soil-plant-atmosphere system.

Dr. Paolo Ruisi
Dr. Vito Armando Laudicina
Dr. Giuseppe Badagliacca
Guest Editors

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