BioOne Complete (complete.BioOne.org) is a full-text database of 200 subscribed and open-access titles in the biological, ecological, and environmental sciences published by nonprofit societies, associations, museums, institutions, and presses.

Soil pH regulates the capacity of soils to store and supply nutrients, and thus contributes substantially to controlling productivity in terrestrial ecosystems 1 . However, soil pH is not an independent regulator of soil fertility-rather, it is ultimately controlled by environmental forcing. In particular, small changes in water balance cause a steep transition from alkaline to acid soils across natural climate gradients 2,3 . Although the processes governing this threshold in soil pH are well understood, the threshold has not been quantified at the global scale, where the influence of climate may be confounded by the effects of topography and mineralogy. Here we evaluate the global relationship between water balance and soil pH by extracting a spatially random sample (n = 20,000) from an extensive compilation of 60,291 soil pH measurements. We show that there is an abrupt transition from alkaline to acid soil pH that occurs at the point where mean annual precipitation begins to exceed mean annual potential evapotranspiration. We evaluate deviations from this global pattern, showing that they may result from seasonality, climate history, erosion and mineralogy. These results demonstrate that climate creates a nonlinear pattern in soil solution chemistry at the global scale; they also reveal conditions under which soils maintain pH out of equilibrium with modern climate.Climate controls many aspects of soil chemistry, affecting soil pH (ref. 4). Alkaline soils are known to be common in arid climates, while acid soils are known to be common in humid climates 1 . Surprisingly, however, the global-scale mechanisms governing this pattern remain broadly defined, and untested by direct observation. What are the dominant chemical equilibria that constrain soil pH? What aspect of climate defines the transition between alkaline and acid soils, and is the transition linear? The answers to these questions are fundamental to understanding soil development and surface geochemistry at the global scale. Furthermore, achieving this understanding may prove essential for representing soils in models of the terrestrial biosphere, given that soil pH controls many aspects of soil fertility 5,6 . Here we illustrate that simple geochemical and hydrological concepts can be used to build a mechanistic understanding of soil pH at the global scale.Interpretations of acid-titration experiments indicate that the soil pH is typically most strongly buffered by equilibrium with two secondary minerals: calcite (CaCO 3 ), or gibbsite (Al(OH) 3 ) 7,8 Fig. 1).Local studies of climate gradients have shown that the relative importance of these two buffers is determined by leaching, which removes Ca 2+ from the soil 2,3,8,9 . In climates where evaporative demand exceeds precipitation, leaching rates are low, and dissolved Ca 2+ accumulates as CaCO 3 -buffering soil pH near 8.2 (ref. 4). Conversely, in climates where precipitation exceeds evaporative demand, water leaches through the soil, removing Ca 2+ and allowing accumulation of relatively immobile...

Recent climate‐change research largely confirms the impacts on US ecosystems identified in the 2009 National Climate Assessment and provides greater mechanistic understanding and geographic specificity for those impacts. Pervasive climate‐change impacts on ecosystems are those that affect productivity of ecosystems or their ability to process chemical elements. Loss of sea ice, rapid warming, and higher organic inputs affect marine and lake productivity, while combined impacts of wildfire and insect outbreaks decrease forest productivity, mostly in the arid and semi‐arid West. Forests in wetter regions are more productive owing to warming. Shifts in species ranges are so extensive that by 2100 they may alter biome composition across 5–20% of US land area. Accelerated losses of nutrients from terrestrial ecosystems to receiving waters are caused by both winter warming and intensification of the hydrologic cycle. Ecosystem feedbacks, especially those associated with release of carbon dioxide and methane release from wetlands and thawing permafrost soils, magnify the rate of climate change.

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The last two decades have seen significant advances in understanding the cycling of carbon and nutrients in ecosystems characterized by seasonal snow cover. This paper reviews and summarizes work on the interactions between seasonal snow cover, soil physico-chemical characteristics, biological activity, and plot-to ecosystem-scale carbon and nitrogen cycling. The magnitude of winter biogeochemical activity is considerable. For example, including these winter fluxes into annual estimates of net ecosystem exchange reduces annual carbon uptake by 50% or more in many ecosystems. The primary climatic control on these fluxes is the amount and timing of precipitation, especially the formation of a consistent seasonal snow cover. Consistent snow cover limits frost damage and controls both the timing and amount of liquid water in soil and the availability of labile carbon substrates. Together, liquid water and labile carbon control the magnitude of in situ activity, exchanges of CO 2 and trace gases, and export of dissolved nutrients. The importance of snow cover to biogeochemical fluxes has led a renewed interest in how spatial variability in vegetation structure influences snow cover through shading, wind sheltering, and interception. Changes in snow cover associated with ongoing changes in both temperature and precipitation have the potential to profoundly impact the soil environment during winter and spring with unclear effects on annual and longer-term patterns of carbon and nitrogen cycling.