Leaf uptake of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in a tropical wet forest: implications for tropospheric chemistry

Tropical forest soils are known to emit large amounts of reactive nitrogen oxide compounds, often referred to collectively as NOy (NOy = NO + NO2 + HN O3 + organic nitrates). Plants are known to assimilate and emit NOy and it is therefore likely that plant canopies affect the atmospheric concentratio n of reactive nitrogen compounds by assimilating or emitting some fraction of the soil-emitted NOy. It is crucial to understand the magnitude of the c anopy effects and the primary environmental and physiological controls over NOy exchange in order to accurately quantify regional NOy inventories and parameterize models of tropospheric photochemistry. In this study we focuse d on nitrogen dioxide (NO2), which is the component of NOy that most direct ly catalyzes the chemistry of O-3 dynamics, one of the most abundant oxidat ive species in the troposphere, and which has been reported as the NOy spec ies that is most readily exchanged between plants and the atmosphere. Leaf chamber measurements of NO2 flux were measured in 25 tree species growing i n a wet tropical forest in the Republic of Panama. NO2 was emitted to the a tmosphere at ambient NO2 concentrations below 0.53-1.60 ppbv (the NO2 compe nsation point) depending on species, with the highest rate of emission bein g 50 pmol m(-2) s(-1) at <0.1 ppbv. NO2 was assimilated by leaves at ambien t NO2 concentrations above the compensation point, with the maximum observe d uptake rate being 1,550 pmol m(-2) s(-1) at 5 ppbv. No seasonal variation in leaf NO2 flux was observed in this study and leaf emission and uptake a ppeared to be primarily controlled by leaf nitrogen and stomatal conductanc e, respectively. When scaled to the entire canopy, soil NO emission rates t o the atmosphere were estimated to be maximally altered +/-19% by the overl ying canopy.