• Energy Research

AbstractVegetation is often viewed as a consequence of long‐term climate conditions. However, vegetation itself plays a fundamental role in shaping Earth's climate by regulating the energy, water, and biogeochemical cycles across terrestrial landscapes. It exerts influence by consuming water resources through transpiration and interception, lowering atmospheric CO2 concentration, altering surface roughness, and controlling net radiation and its partitioning into sensible and latent heat fluxes. This influence propagates through the atmosphere, from microclimate scales to the entire atmospheric boundary layer, subsequently impacting large‐scale circulation and the global transport of heat and moisture. Understanding the feedbacks between vegetation and atmosphere across multiple scales is crucial for predicting the influence of land use and land cover changes, and for accurately representing these processes in climate models. This review discusses the biophysical and biogeochemical mechanisms through which vegetation modulates climate across spatial and temporal scales. Particularly, we evaluate the influence of vegetation on circulation patterns, precipitation, and temperature, considering both long‐term trends and extreme events, such as droughts and heatwaves. Our goal is to highlight the state of science and review recent studies that may help advance our collective understanding of vegetation feedbacks and the role they play in climate.

AbstractClimate extremes are on the rise. Impacts of extreme climate and weather events on ecosystem services and ultimately human well‐being can be partially attenuated by the organismic, structural, and functional diversity of the affected land surface. However, the ongoing transformation of terrestrial ecosystems through intensified exploitation and management may put this buffering capacity at risk. Here, we summarize the evidence that reductions in biodiversity can destabilize the functioning of ecosystems facing climate extremes. We then explore if impaired ecosystem functioning could, in turn, exacerbate climate extremes. We argue that only a comprehensive approach, incorporating both ecological and hydrometeorological perspectives, enables us to understand and predict the entire feedback system between altered biodiversity and climate extremes. This ambition, however, requires a reformulation of current research priorities to emphasize the bidirectional effects that link ecology and atmospheric processes.

Abstract Climate change elevates the threat of compound heat and drought events, with their ecological and socioeconomic impacts exacerbated by human ecosystem alterations such as eutrophication, salinization, and river engineering. Here, we study how multiple stressors produced an environmental disaster in a large European river, the Oder, where a toxic bloom of the brackish-water planktonic haptophyte Prymnesium parvum (the “golden algae”) killed approximately 1000 metric tons of fish and most mussels and snails. We uncovered the complexity of this event using hydroclimatic data, remote sensing, cell counts, hydrochemical and toxin analyses, and genetics. After incubation in impounded upstream channels with drastically elevated concentrations of salts and nutrients, only a critical combination of chronic salt and nutrient pollution, acute high water temperatures, and low river discharge during a heatwave enabled the riverine mass proliferation of B-type P. parvum along a 500 km river section. The dramatic losses of large filter feeders and the spreading of vegetative cells and resting stages make the system more susceptible to new harmful algal blooms. Our findings show that global warming, water use intensification, and chronic ecosystem pollution could increase likelihood and severity of such compound ecoclimatic events, necessitating consideration in future impact models.

AbstractFundamental axes of variation in plant traits result from trade-offs between costs and benefits of resource-use strategies at the leaf scale. However, it is unclear whether similar trade-offs propagate to the ecosystem level. Here, we test whether trait correlation patterns predicted by three well-known leaf- and plant-level coordination theories – the leaf economics spectrum, the global spectrum of plant form and function, and the least-cost hypothesis – are also observed between community mean traits and ecosystem processes. We combined ecosystem functional properties from FLUXNET sites, vegetation properties, and community mean plant traits into three corresponding principal component analyses. We find that the leaf economics spectrum (90 sites), the global spectrum of plant form and function (89 sites), and the least-cost hypothesis (82 sites) all propagate at the ecosystem level. However, we also find evidence of additional scale-emergent properties. Evaluating the coordination of ecosystem functional properties may aid the development of more realistic global dynamic vegetation models with critical empirical data, reducing the uncertainty of climate change projections.

Le réchauffement climatique rapide, avec des taux de réchauffement beaucoup plus élevés en hiver et au printemps, pourrait affecter l'accomplissement de la vernalisation, un processus essentiel pour l'induction de la croissance reproductive des cultures et le remplissage des céréales dans les cultures d'hiver tempérées. Cependant, les données d'observation régionales des effets des variations historiques de vernalisation médiées par le réchauffement sur les rendements des cultures d'hiver tempérées font défaut. Ici, nous avons quantifié statistiquement la sensibilité interannuelle des rendements du blé d'hiver aux degrés-jours de vernalisation (DMV) au cours de la période 1975–2009 et sa relation spatiale avec la DMV moyenne pluriannuelle sur l'Europe tempérée (ET), en utilisant les statistiques d'EUROSTAT sur le rendement des cultures, les données de phénologie des cultures observées et simulées et les données climatiques quotidiennes maillées. Nos résultats ont révélé une sensibilité interannuelle largement positive des rendements du blé d'hiver aux variations de VDD (γVDD) sur TE, avec une moyenne de γVDD de 2,8 ± 1,5 kg ha–1 VDD–1. Nous avons révélé une relation exponentielle négative significative (p < 0,05) entre la γVDD et la VDD moyenne pluriannuelle pour le blé d'hiver à travers l'ET, avec une γVDD plus élevée dans les zones de plantation de blé d'hiver avec une VDD moyenne pluriannuelle plus faible. Nos résultats mettent en lumière la vulnérabilité potentielle des rendements du blé d'hiver aux variations de vernalisation induites par le réchauffement par rapport à l'ET, en particulier compte tenu d'un climat probablement plus chaud à l'avenir. El rápido calentamiento climático, con tasas de calentamiento mucho más altas en invierno y primavera, podría afectar el cumplimiento de la vernalización, un proceso crítico para la inducción del crecimiento reproductivo de los cultivos y el consiguiente llenado de granos en los cultivos de invierno templados. Sin embargo, se carece de evidencia observacional regional de los efectos de las variaciones históricas de vernalización mediadas por el calentamiento en los rendimientos de los cultivos de invierno templados. Aquí, cuantificamos estadísticamente la sensibilidad interanual de los rendimientos de trigo de invierno a los días de grado de vernalización (VDD) durante 1975–2009 y su relación espacial con el VDD medio plurianual sobre la Europa templada (TE), utilizando estadísticas de rendimiento de cultivos de EUROSTAT, datos de fenología de cultivos observados y simulados y datos climáticos diarios cuadriculados. Nuestros resultados revelaron una sensibilidad interanual positiva generalizada de los rendimientos de trigo de invierno a las variaciones en VDD (γVDD) sobre TE, con una media de γVDD de 2,8 ± 1,5 kg ha–1 VDD–1. Revelamos una relación exponencial negativa significativa (p < 0,05) entre la γVDD y la VDD media plurianual para el trigo de invierno en todo el TE, con una γVDD más alta en las áreas de siembra de trigo de invierno con una VDD media plurianual más baja. Nuestros hallazgos arrojan luz sobre la vulnerabilidad potencial de los rendimientos de trigo de invierno a las variaciones de vernalización mediadas por el calentamiento sobre TE, particularmente considerando un clima probablemente más cálido en el futuro. Rapid climate warming, with much higher warming rates in winter and spring, could affect the vernalization fulfillment, a critical process for induction of crop reproductive growth and consequent grain filling in temperate winter crops. However, regional observational evidence of the effects of historical warming-mediated vernalization variations on temperate winter crop yields is lacking. Here, we statistically quantified the interannual sensitivity of winter wheat yields to vernalization degree days (VDD) during 1975–2009 and its spatial relationship with multi-year mean VDD over temperate Europe (TE), using EUROSTAT crop yield statistics, observed and simulated crop phenology data and gridded daily climate data. Our results revealed a pervasively positive interannual sensitivity of winter wheat yields to variations in VDD (γVDD) over TE, with a mean γVDD of 2.8 ± 1.5 kg ha–1 VDD–1. We revealed a significant (p < 0.05) negative exponential relationship between γVDD and multi-year mean VDD for winter wheat across TE, with higher γVDD in winter wheat planting areas with lower multi-year mean VDD. Our findings shed light on potential vulnerability of winter wheat yields to warming-mediated vernalization variations over TE, particularly considering a likely future warmer climate. يمكن أن يؤثر الاحترار المناخي السريع، مع ارتفاع معدلات الاحترار في الشتاء والربيع، على تحقيق الربيعية، وهي عملية حاسمة لتحفيز نمو تكاثر المحاصيل وما يترتب على ذلك من ملء الحبوب في المحاصيل الشتوية المعتدلة. ومع ذلك، هناك نقص في أدلة الرصد الإقليمية لتأثيرات التغيرات التاريخية في التقسيم الربيعي بوساطة الاحترار على غلات المحاصيل الشتوية المعتدلة. هنا، قمنا إحصائيًا بقياس الحساسية السنوية لعائدات القمح الشتوي لأيام درجة اليرنلة (VDD) خلال 1975–2009 وعلاقتها المكانية بمتوسط متعدد السنوات من VDD على أوروبا المعتدلة (TE)، باستخدام إحصاءات غلة المحاصيل للمكتب الإحصائي للجماعات الأوروبية، وبيانات علم ظواهر المحاصيل المرصودة والمحاكاة والبيانات المناخية اليومية الشبكية. كشفت نتائجنا عن حساسية سنوية إيجابية على نطاق واسع لعائدات القمح الشتوي للاختلافات في VDD (γVDD) على TE، بمتوسط γVDD 2.8 ± 1.5 كجم هكتار -1 VDD -1. كشفنا عن وجود علاقة أسية سلبية كبيرة (p < 0.05) بين γVDD ومتوسط VDD متعدد السنوات للقمح الشتوي عبر TE، مع ارتفاع γVDD في مناطق زراعة القمح الشتوي مع انخفاض متوسط VDD متعدد السنوات. تسلط النتائج التي توصلنا إليها الضوء على الضعف المحتمل لعائدات القمح الشتوي لتغيرات التقشير المتواسط مع الاحترار على TE، لا سيما بالنظر إلى المناخ الأكثر دفئًا في المستقبل.