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Asymmetric temperature effect on leaf senescence and its control on ecosystem productivity

He, Lei ; Wang, Jian ; Peñuelas, Josep ; Zohner, Constantin M. ; Crowther, Thomas W. ; Fu, Yongshuo ; Zhang, Wenxin LU orcid ; Xiao, Jingfeng ; Liu, Zhihua and Wang, Xufeng , et al. (2024) In PNAS Nexus 3(11).
Abstract

Widespread autumn cooling occurred in the northern hemisphere (NH) during the period 2004-2018, primarily due to the strengthening of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Siberian High. Yet, while there has been considerable focus on the warming impacts, the effects of natural cooling on autumn leaf senescence and plant productivity have been largely overlooked. This gap in knowledge hinders our understanding of how vegetation adapts and acclimates to complex climate change. In this study, we utilize over 36,000 in situ phenological time series from 11,138 European sites dating back to the 1950s, and 30 years of satellite greenness data (1989-2018), to demonstrate that leaf senescence dates (LSD) in northern forests responded more... (More)

Widespread autumn cooling occurred in the northern hemisphere (NH) during the period 2004-2018, primarily due to the strengthening of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Siberian High. Yet, while there has been considerable focus on the warming impacts, the effects of natural cooling on autumn leaf senescence and plant productivity have been largely overlooked. This gap in knowledge hinders our understanding of how vegetation adapts and acclimates to complex climate change. In this study, we utilize over 36,000 in situ phenological time series from 11,138 European sites dating back to the 1950s, and 30 years of satellite greenness data (1989-2018), to demonstrate that leaf senescence dates (LSD) in northern forests responded more strongly to warming than to cooling in autumn. Specifically, a 1 °C increase in temperature caused 7.5 ± 0.2 days' delay in LSD, whereas a 1 °C decrease led to an advance of LSD with 3.3 ± 0.1 days (P < 0.001). This asymmetry in temperature effects on LSD is attributed to greater preoverwintering plant-resource acquisition requirements, lower frost risk, and greater water availability under warming than cooling conditions. These differential LSD responses highlight the nonlinear impact of temperature on autumn plant productivity, which current process-oriented models fail to accurately capture. Our findings emphasize the need to account for the asymmetric effects of warming and cooling on leaf senescence in model projections and in understanding vegetation-climate feedback mechanisms.

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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
PNAS Nexus
volume
3
issue
11
article number
pgae477
publisher
Oxford University Press
external identifiers
  • pmid:39492950
  • scopus:85208718023
ISSN
2752-6542
DOI
10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae477
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of National Academy of Sciences.
id
3ef6c485-3f84-4e97-a7b5-e5819056dc9f
date added to LUP
2024-11-29 06:36:21
date last changed
2025-07-12 01:15:28
@article{3ef6c485-3f84-4e97-a7b5-e5819056dc9f,
  abstract     = {{<p>Widespread autumn cooling occurred in the northern hemisphere (NH) during the period 2004-2018, primarily due to the strengthening of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and Siberian High. Yet, while there has been considerable focus on the warming impacts, the effects of natural cooling on autumn leaf senescence and plant productivity have been largely overlooked. This gap in knowledge hinders our understanding of how vegetation adapts and acclimates to complex climate change. In this study, we utilize over 36,000 in situ phenological time series from 11,138 European sites dating back to the 1950s, and 30 years of satellite greenness data (1989-2018), to demonstrate that leaf senescence dates (LSD) in northern forests responded more strongly to warming than to cooling in autumn. Specifically, a 1 °C increase in temperature caused 7.5 ± 0.2 days' delay in LSD, whereas a 1 °C decrease led to an advance of LSD with 3.3 ± 0.1 days (P &lt; 0.001). This asymmetry in temperature effects on LSD is attributed to greater preoverwintering plant-resource acquisition requirements, lower frost risk, and greater water availability under warming than cooling conditions. These differential LSD responses highlight the nonlinear impact of temperature on autumn plant productivity, which current process-oriented models fail to accurately capture. Our findings emphasize the need to account for the asymmetric effects of warming and cooling on leaf senescence in model projections and in understanding vegetation-climate feedback mechanisms.</p>}},
  author       = {{He, Lei and Wang, Jian and Peñuelas, Josep and Zohner, Constantin M. and Crowther, Thomas W. and Fu, Yongshuo and Zhang, Wenxin and Xiao, Jingfeng and Liu, Zhihua and Wang, Xufeng and Li, Jia Hao and Li, Xiaojun and Peng, Shouzhang and Xie, Yaowen and Ye, Jian Sheng and Zhou, Chenghu and Li, Zhao Liang}},
  issn         = {{2752-6542}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{11}},
  number       = {{11}},
  publisher    = {{Oxford University Press}},
  series       = {{PNAS Nexus}},
  title        = {{Asymmetric temperature effect on leaf senescence and its control on ecosystem productivity}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae477}},
  doi          = {{10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae477}},
  volume       = {{3}},
  year         = {{2024}},
}