Elevational patterns of acid deposition into a forest and nitrogen saturation on Mt. Oyama, Japan

Virgin fir trees have been dying on Mt. Oyama, which is located in the southwestern part of Kanto Plain, although the frequency of death seems to be reducing recently. We report elevational patterns of acid deposition in precipitation and throughfall under fir and cedar canopies and nitrogen saturation in the forest ecosystem on Mt. Oyama. The deposition fluxes of major inorganic ions in precipitation were nearly constant regardless of elevation except for hydrogen and ammonium ions, whereas the deposition fluxes of all major inorganic ions in throughfall among cedar increased. The 5-year average of annual nitrate deposition in precipitation from 1994 to 1998 showed 19.3 - 23.5 kg ha^-1 yr^-1 (annual inorganic total N deposition: 9.6 - 10.7 kgN ha^-1 yr^-1) at four sites ranging in elevation from 500 to 1252 m, whereas the deposition in both cedar and fir throughfall was over 6 times greater than that in precipitation. The average soil surface nitrate concentration in 1998 was 140 μg g^-1 (the range: 21.1 - 429 μg g^-1, n=80) and the 7-year average of nitrate concentration in stream water from 1992 to 1998 was 4.81 mg L^-1 (the range: 2.38 - 20.6 mg L^-1, n=317). Our results indicate that nitrogen saturation is occurring in the forest ecosystem because of high N deposition, probably via acid fog, on Mt. Oyama.