Title: Enhanced peak growth of global vegetation and its key mechanisms

Journal Article · · Nature Ecology and Evolution
 [1]; ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4]; ORCiD logo [5];  [1]; ORCiD logo [6];  [7];  [8];  [1]; ORCiD logo [6];  [1];  [9];  [10];  [1]; ORCiD logo [5];  [1]; ORCiD logo [1];  [1] more »;  [8] « less
  1. East China Normal Univ., Shanghai (China)
  2. Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Melbourne VIC (Australia); Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Guangzhou (China)
  3. Lund Univ. (Sweden); Stanford Univ., CA (United States)
  4. Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)
  5. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  6. Carnegie Inst. of Science, Stanford, CA (United States)
  7. California Inst. of Technology (CalTech), Pasadena, CA (United States)
  8. Northern Arizona Univ., Flagstaff, AZ (United States)
  9. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  10. Woods Hole Research Center, Falmouth, MA (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

The annual peak growth of vegetation is critical in characterizing the capacity of terrestrial ecosystem productivity and shaping the seasonality of atmospheric CO2 concentrations. The recent greening of global lands suggests an increasing trend of terrestrial vegetation growth, but whether or not the peak growth has been globally enhanced still remains unclear. Here, we use two global datasets of gross primary productivity (GPP) and a satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to characterize recent changes in annual peak vegetation growth (that is, GPPmax and NDVImax). We demonstrate that the peak in the growth of global vegetation has been linearly increasing during the past three decades. About 65% of the NDVImax variation is evenly explained by expanding croplands (21%), rising CO2 (22%) and intensifying nitrogen deposition (22%). The contribution of expanding croplands to the peak growth trend is substantiated by measurements from eddy-flux towers, sun-induced chlorophyll fluorescence and a global database of plant traits, all of which show that croplands have a higher photosynthetic capacity than other vegetation types. The large contribution of CO2 is also supported by a meta-analysis of 466 manipulative experiments and 15 terrestrial biosphere models. Moreover, we show that the contribution of GPPmax to the change in annual GPP is less in the tropics than in other regions. These multiple lines of evidence reveal an increasing trend in the peak growth of global vegetation. These results draw attention to the vital roles of agricultural intensification and atmospheric changes in reshaping the seasonality of global vegetation growth.

Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
National Natural Science Foundation; USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1545191
Journal Information:
Nature Ecology and Evolution, Journal Name: Nature Ecology and Evolution Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 2; ISSN 2397-334X
Publisher:
Nature Publishing GroupCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Forest management in southern China generates short term extensive carbon sequestration journal January 2020
Differential roles of species richness versus species asynchrony in regulating community stability along a precipitation gradient journal November 2019
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Asymmetric Behavior of Vegetation Seasonal Growth and the Climatic Cause: Evidence from Long-Term NDVI Dataset in Northeast China journal September 2019
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