• Energy Research

Abstract Shifts in dominance and species reordering can occur in response to global change. However, it is not clear how altered precipitation and disturbance regimes interact to affect species composition and dominance. We explored community‐level diversity and compositional similarity responses, both across and within years, to a manipulated precipitation gradient and annual clipping in a mixed‐grass prairie in Oklahoma, USA. We imposed seven precipitation treatments (five water exclusion levels [−20%, −40%, −60%, −80%, and −100%], water addition [+50%], and control [0% change in precipitation]) year‐round from 2016 to 2018 using fixed interception shelters. These treatments were crossed with annual clipping to mimic hay harvest. We found that community‐level responses were influenced by precipitation across time. For instance, plant evenness was enhanced by extreme drought treatments, while plant richness was marginally promoted under increased precipitation. Clipping promoted species gain resulting in greater richness within each experimental year. Across years, clipping effects further reduced the precipitation effects on community‐level responses (richness and evenness) at both extreme drought and added precipitation treatments. Synthesis: Our results highlight the importance of studying interactive drivers of change both within versus across time. For instance, clipping attenuated community‐level responses to a gradient in precipitation, suggesting that management could buffer community‐level responses to drought. However, precipitation effects were mild and likely to accentuate over time to produce further community change.

AbstractClimate change leads to increasing temperature and more extreme hot and drought events. Ecosystem capability to cope with climate warming depends on vegetation's adjusting pace with temperature change. How environmental stresses impair such a vegetation pace has not been carefully investigated. Here we show that dryness substantially dampens vegetation pace in warm regions to adjust the optimal temperature of gross primary production (GPP) () in response to change in temperature over space and time. spatially converges to an increase of 1.01°C (95% CI: 0.97, 1.05) per 1°C increase in the yearly maximum temperature (Tmax) across humid or cold sites worldwide (37oS–79oN) but only 0.59°C (95% CI: 0.46, 0.74) per 1°C increase in Tmax across dry and warm sites. temporally changes by 0.81°C (95% CI: 0.75, 0.87) per 1°C interannual variation in Tmax at humid or cold sites and 0.42°C (95% CI: 0.17, 0.66) at dry and warm sites. Regardless of the water limitation, the maximum GPP (GPPmax) similarly increases by 0.23 g C m−2 day−1 per 1°C increase in in either humid or dry areas. Our results indicate that the future climate warming likely stimulates vegetation productivity more substantially in humid than water‐limited regions.

Terrestrial photosynthesis, or gross primary production (GPP), is the largest carbon flux in the biosphere, but its global magnitude and spatiotemporal dynamics remain uncertain1. The global annual mean GPP is historically thought to be around 120 PgC yr-1 (refs. 2-6), which is about 30-50 PgC yr-1 lower than GPP inferred from the oxygen-18 (18O) isotope7 and soil respiration8. This disparity is a source of uncertainty in predicting climate-carbon cycle feedbacks9,10. Here we infer GPP from carbonyl sulfide, an innovative tracer for CO2 diffusion from ambient air to leaf chloroplasts through stomata and mesophyll layers. We demonstrate that explicitly representing mesophyll diffusion is important for accurately quantifying the spatiotemporal dynamics of carbonyl sulfide uptake by plants. From the estimate of carbonyl sulfide uptake by plants, we infer a global contemporary GPP of 157 (±8.5) PgC yr-1, which is consistent with estimates from 18O (150-175 PgC yr-1) and soil respiration ( 149 - 23 + 29 PgC yr-1), but with an improved confidence level. Our global GPP is higher than satellite optical observation-driven estimates (120-140 PgC yr-1) that are used for Earth system model benchmarking. This difference predominantly occurs in the pan-tropical rainforests and is corroborated by ground measurements11, suggesting a more productive tropics than satellite-based GPP products indicated. As GPP is a primary determinant of terrestrial carbon sinks and may shape climate trajectories9,10, our findings lay a physiological foundation on which the understanding and prediction of carbon-climate feedbacks can be advanced.

AbstractLarge‐scale terrestrial carbon (C) estimating studies using methods such as atmospheric inversion, biogeochemical modeling, and field inventories have produced different results. The goal of this study was to integrate fine‐scale processes including land use and land cover change into a large‐scale ecosystem framework. We analyzed the terrestrial C budget of the conterminous United States from 1971 to 2015 at 1‐km resolution using an enhanced dynamic global vegetation model and comprehensive land cover change data. Effects of atmospheric CO2 fertilization, nitrogen deposition, climate, wildland fire, harvest, and land use/land cover change (LUCC) were considered. We estimate annual C losses from cropland harvest, forest clearcut and thinning, fire, and LUCC were 436.8, 117.9, 10.5, and 10.4 TgC/year, respectively. C stored in ecosystems increased from 119,494 to 127,157 TgC between 1971 and 2015, indicating a mean annual net C sink of 170.3 TgC/year. Although ecosystem net primary production increased by approximately 12.3 TgC/year, most of it was offset by increased C loss from harvest and natural disturbance and increased ecosystem respiration related to forest aging. As a result, the strength of the overall ecosystem C sink did not increase over time. Our modeled results indicate the conterminous US C sink was about 30% smaller than previous modeling studies, but converged more closely with inventory data.

The world's forests store large amounts of carbon (C), and growing forests can reduce atmospheric CO2 by storing C in their biomass. This has provided the impetus for world-wide tree planting initiatives to offset fossil-fuel emissions. However, forests interact with their environment in complex and multifaceted ways that must be considered for a balanced assessment of the value of planting trees. First, one needs to consider the potential reversibility of C sequestration in trees through either harvesting or tree death from natural factors. If carbon storage is only temporary, future temperatures will actually be higher than without tree plantings, but cumulative warming will be reduced, contributing both positively and negatively to future climate-change impacts. Alternatively, forests could be used for bioenergy or wood products to replace fossil-fuel use which would obviate the need to consider the possible reversibility of any benefits. Forests also affect the Earth's energy balance through either absorbing or reflecting incoming solar radiation. As forests generally absorb more incoming radiation than bare ground or grasslands, this constitutes an important warming effect that substantially reduces the benefit of C storage, especially in snow-covered regions. Forests also affect other local ecosystem services, such as conserving biodiversity, modifying water and nutrient cycles, and preventing erosion that could be either beneficial or harmful depending on specific circumstances. Considering all these factors, tree plantings may be beneficial or detrimental for mitigating climate-change impacts, but the range of possibilities makes generalisations difficult. Their net benefit depends on many factors that differ between specific circumstances. One can, therefore, neither uncritically endorse tree planting everywhere, nor condemn it as counter-productive. Our aim is to provide key information to enable appropriate assessments to be made under specific circumstances. We conclude our discussion by providing a step-by-step guide for assessing the merit of tree plantings under specific circumstances.

AbstractNitrogen immobilization usually leads to nitrogen retention in soil and, thus, influences soil nitrogen supply for plant growth. Understanding soil nitrogen immobilization is important for predicting soil nitrogen cycling under anthropogenic activities and climate changes. However, the global patterns and drivers of soil nitrogen immobilization remain unclear. We synthesized 1350 observations of gross soil nitrogen immobilization rate (NIR) from 97 articles to identify patterns and drivers of NIR. The global mean NIR was 8.77 ± 1.01 mg N kg−1 soil day−1. It was 5.55 ± 0.41 mg N kg−1 soil day−1 in croplands, 15.74 ± 3.02 mg N kg−1 soil day−1 in wetlands, and 15.26 ± 2.98 mg N kg−1 soil day−1 in forests. The NIR increased with mean annual temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, soil organic carbon, total nitrogen, dissolved organic nitrogen, ammonium, nitrate, phosphorus, and microbial biomass carbon. But it decreased with soil pH. The results of structural equation models showed that soil microbial biomass carbon was a pivotal driver of NIR, because temperature, total soil nitrogen, and soil pH mostly indirectly influenced NIR via changing soil microbial biomass. Moreover, microbial biomass carbon accounted for most of the variations in NIR among all direct relationships. Furthermore, the efficiency of transforming the immobilized nitrogen to microbial biomass nitrogen was lower in croplands than in natural ecosystems (i.e., forests, grasslands, and wetlands). These findings suggested that soil nitrogen retention may decrease under the land use change from forests or wetlands to croplands, but NIR was expected to increase due to increased microbial biomass under global warming. The identified patterns and drivers of soil nitrogen immobilization in this study are crucial to project the changes in soil nitrogen retention.

Summary Whether and how warming alters functional traits of absorptive plant roots remains to be answered across the globe. Tackling this question is crucial to better understanding terrestrial responses to climate change as fine‐root traits drive many ecosystem processes. We carried out a detailed synthesis of fine‐root trait responses to experimental warming by performing a meta‐analysis of 964 paired observations from 177 publications. Warming increased fine‐root biomass, production, respiration and nitrogen concentration as well as decreased root carbon : nitrogen ratio and nonstructural carbohydrates. Warming effects on fine‐root biomass decreased with greater warming magnitude, especially in short‐term experiments. Furthermore, the positive effect of warming on fine‐root biomass was strongest in deeper soil horizons and in colder and drier regions. Total fine‐root length, morphology, mortality, life span and turnover were unresponsive to warming. Our results highlight the significant changes in fine‐root traits in response to warming as well as the importance of warming magnitude and duration in understanding fine‐root responses. These changes have strong implications for global soil carbon stocks in a warmer world associated with increased root‐derived carbon inputs into deeper soil horizons and increases in fine‐root respiration.

AbstractIncreased human‐derived nitrogen (N) deposition to terrestrial ecosystems has resulted in widespread phosphorus (P) limitation of net primary productivity. However, it remains unclear if and how N‐induced P limitation varies over time. Soil extracellular phosphatases catalyze the hydrolysis of P from soil organic matter, an important adaptive mechanism for ecosystems to cope with N‐induced P limitation. Here we show, using a meta‐analysis of 140 studies and 668 observations worldwide, that N stimulation of soil phosphatase activity diminishes over time. Whereas short‐term N loading (≤5 years) significantly increased soil phosphatase activity by 28%, long‐term N loading had no significant effect. Nitrogen loading did not affect soil available P and total P content in either short‐ or long‐term studies. Together, these results suggest that N‐induced P limitation in ecosystems is alleviated in the long‐term through the initial stimulation of soil phosphatase activity, thereby securing P supply to support plant growth. Our results suggest that increases in terrestrial carbon uptake due to ongoing anthropogenic N loading may be greater than previously thought.