A Bayesian approach for estimating the uncertainty on the contribution of nitrogen fixation and calculation of nutrient balances in grain legumes

Abstract Background The proportion of nitrogen (N) derived from the atmosphere (Ndfa) is a fundamental component of the plant N demand in legume species. To estimate the N benefit of grain legumes for the subsequent crop in the rotation, a simplified N balance is frequently used. This balance is calculated as the difference between fixed N and removed N by grains. The Ndfa needed to achieve a neutral N balance (hereafter $$\theta$$ θ ) is usually estimated through a simple linear regression model between Ndfa and N balance. This quantity is routinely estimated without accounting for the uncertainty in the estimate, which is needed to perform formal statistical inference about $$\theta$$ θ . In this article, we utilized a global database to describe the development of a novel Bayesian framework to quantify the uncertainty of $$\theta$$ θ . This study aimed to (i) develop a Bayesian framework to quantify the uncertainty of $$\theta$$ θ , and (ii) contrast the use of this Bayesian framework with the widely used delta and bootstrapping methods under different data availability scenarios. Results The delta method, bootstrapping, and Bayesian inference provided nearly equivalent numerical values when the range of values for Ndfa was thoroughly explored during data collection (e.g., 6–91%), and the number of observations was relatively high (e.g., $$\ge 100$$ ≥ 100 ). When the Ndfa tested was narrow and/or sample size was small, the delta method and bootstrapping provided confidence intervals containing biologically non-meaningful values (i.e. 100%). However, under a narrow Ndfa range and small sample size, the developed Bayesian inference framework obtained biologically meaningful values in the uncertainty estimation. Conclusion In this study, we showed that the developed Bayesian framework was preferable under limited data conditions ─by using informative priors─ and when uncertainty estimation had to be constrained (regularized) to obtain meaningful inference. The presented Bayesian framework lays the foundation not only to conduct formal comparisons or hypothesis testing involving $$\theta$$ θ , but also to learn about its expected value, variance, and higher moments such as skewness and kurtosis under different agroecological and crop management conditions. This framework can also be transferred to estimate balances for other nutrients and/or field crops to gain knowledge on global crop nutrient balances.