Questions come from the Bluebook question bank.
- For each data category, the following bars are shown:
- with nitrogen
- without nitrogen
- All values are approximate.
- The data for the 3 categories are as follows:
- current:
- with nitrogen: 0.21 centimeters per year
- without nitrogen: 0.16 centimeters per year
- moderate change:
- with nitrogen: 0.19 centimeters per year
- without nitrogen: 0.15 centimeters per year
- extreme change:
- with nitrogen: 0.06 centimeters per year
- without nitrogen: 0.04 centimeters per year
- current:
Inés Ibáñez and colleagues studied a forest site in which some sugar maple trees receive periodic fertilization with nitrogen to mimic the broader trend of increasing anthropogenic nitrogen deposition in soil. Ibáñez and colleagues modeled the radial growth of the trees with and without nitrogen fertilization under three different climate scenarios (the current climate, moderate change, and extreme change). Although they found that climate change would negatively affect growth, they concluded that anthropogenic nitrogen deposition could more than offset that effect provided that change is moderate rather than extreme.
Which choice best describes data from the graph that support Ibáñez and colleagues’ conclusion?