Nutrients Affect Plant Productivity

NASA has published a global map of the percentage that vegetation growth is limited by available soil nutrients.

"The map, published recently in the journal Global Biogeochemical Cycles, shows the places where vegetation productivity was less than the potential maximum, and then infers that the vegetation in those places was limited by the amount of available soil nutrients there. Results of the study were evaluated using measurements of nutrients and vegetation productivity taken at ground validation sites in Hawaii.

"There are many regions on Earth where vegetation struggles to reach optimum productivity because of sparse nutrients, such as nitrogen or phosphorus," said Fisher. "This reduces global vegetation productivity by nearly a quarter compared to vegetation in a completely fertile Earth."