Contrasting responses of woody and grassland ecosystems to increased CO2 as water supply varies

Pan, Yude; Jackson, Robert B.; Hollinger, David Y.; Phillips, Oliver L.; Nowak, Robert S.; Norby, Richard J.; Oren, Ram; Reich, Peter B.; Lüscher, Andreas; Mueller, Kevin E.; Owensby, Clenton; Birdsey, Richard; Hom, John; Luo, Yiqi

doi:10.1038/s41559-021-01642-6

Title: Contrasting responses of woody and grassland ecosystems to increased CO₂ as water supply varies

Journal Article · Thu Jan 13 00:00:00 EST 2022 · Nature Ecology and Evolution

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01642-6· OSTI ID:1840217

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^[2]; Hollinger, David Y. ^[1];

^[3]; Nowak, Robert S. ^[4];

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^[8]; Mueller, Kevin E. ^[9];

^[10]; Birdsey, Richard ^[11];

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USDA Forest Service, Durham, NH (United States)
Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
Univ. of Leeds (United Kingdom)
Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States)
Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
Duke Univ., Durham, NC (United States); Univ. of Helsinki (Finland)
Univ. of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN (United States); Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (United States); Western Sydney Univ., Penrith, NSW (Australia)
ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Inst. of Agricultural Science; Agroscope, Zurich (Switzerland)
Cleveland State Univ, OH (United States)
Kansas State Univ., Manhattan, KS (United States)
Woodwell Climate Research Center, Falmouth, MA (United States)
Univ. of Delaware, Newark, DE (United States)
Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)

Experiments show that elevated atmospheric CO₂ (eCO₂) often enhances plant photosynthesis and productivity, yet this effect varies substantially and may be climate sensitive. Understanding if, where and how water supply regulates CO₂ enhancement is critical for projecting terrestrial responses to increasing atmospheric CO₂ and climate change. Here, using data from 14 long-term ecosystem-scale CO₂ experiments, we show that the eCO₂ enhancement of annual aboveground net primary productivity is sensitive to annual precipitation and that this sensitivity differs between woody and grassland ecosystems. During wetter years, CO₂ enhancement increases in woody ecosystems but declines in grass-dominated systems. Consistent with this difference, woody ecosystems can increase leaf area index in wetter years more effectively under eCO₂ than can grassland ecosystems. Overall, and across different precipitation regimes, woody systems had markedly stronger CO₂ enhancement (24%) than grasslands (13%). Finally, we developed an empirical relationship to quantify aboveground net primary productivity enhancement on the basis of changes in leaf area index, providing a new approach for evaluating eCO₂ impacts on the productivity of terrestrial ecosystems.

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Research Organization:: Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); European Research Council (ERC); National Science Foundation (NSF)

Grant/Contract Number:: AC05-00OR22725; 291585; DBI-2021898

OSTI ID:: 1840217

Journal Information:: Nature Ecology and Evolution, Vol. 6, Issue 3; ISSN 2397-334X

Publisher:: Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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