Deserts already have few plants, but it is now getting harder for plants to live in deserts. So deserts may become more sparse because plants are facing new challenges. Nitrogen is one of the main things keeping biological activity from occurring in arid deserts. Researchers have found a mechanism that balances the nitrogen in deserts. As the earth’s climate gets warmer and warmer the dry soil loses nitrogen. the nitrogen is released from the ground in the form of gas. Scientists used an extremely sensitive instrument to measure the amount of nitrogen gases in the soil. The instrument had never been used in soil before. The scientists did an experiment on the plants. In order to make sure the son was not the reason for the gases to be released they covered the plants from the sun. They found that the gasses coming out of the soil increased even though it was covered from the sun.
The plant life in deserts might end up struggling to survive and could end up ceasing to exists. Which is bad because everything contributes to the ecosystem. Read the article here.
Q2-1
This article was really thought provoking, imagine if the earth ran out of nitrogen it would be horrific we would have to find new sources of energy I wonder if there are any ways to prevent this from happening.
Also I would like to find out if the result of nitrogen releasing into to the air would raise temperatures in the desert as well.