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Relative importance of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits to spatial variability in net CO2 exchange across global forests and grasslands

Zhou, Huimin ; Shao, Junjiong ; Liu, Huiying ; Du, Zhenggang ; Zhou, Lingyan ; Liu, Ruiqiang ; Bernhofer, Christian ; Grünwald, Thomas ; Dušek, Jiří and Montagnani, Leonardo , et al. (2021) In Agricultural and Forest Meteorology 307.
Abstract

Compared to the well-known drivers of spatial variability in gross primary productivity (GPP), the relative importance of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits to the spatial variability in net ecosystem exchange of CO2 between terrestrial ecosystem and atmosphere (NEE) is poorly understood. We used principal component regression to analyze data from 147 eddy flux sites to disentangle effects of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits on the spatial variation in annual NEE and its components (GPP and ecosystem respiration (RE)) across global forests and grasslands. Our results showed that the largest unique contribution (proportion of variance only explained by one class of variables) to NEE... (More)

Compared to the well-known drivers of spatial variability in gross primary productivity (GPP), the relative importance of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits to the spatial variability in net ecosystem exchange of CO2 between terrestrial ecosystem and atmosphere (NEE) is poorly understood. We used principal component regression to analyze data from 147 eddy flux sites to disentangle effects of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits on the spatial variation in annual NEE and its components (GPP and ecosystem respiration (RE)) across global forests and grasslands. Our results showed that the largest unique contribution (proportion of variance only explained by one class of variables) to NEE variance came from climatic variables for forests (24%-30%) and soil properties for grasslands (41%-54%). Specifically, mean annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration were the most important climatic variables driving forest NEE, whereas available soil water capacity, clay content and cation exchange capacity mainly influenced grassland NEE. Plant traits showed a small unique contribution to NEE in both forests and grasslands. However, leaf phosphorus content strongly interacted with soil total nitrogen density and clay content, and these combined factors represented a major contribution for grassland NEE. For GPP and RE, the majority of spatial variance was attributed to the common contribution of climate, soil and plant traits (50% - 62%, proportion of variance explained by more than one class of variables), rather than their unique contributions. Interestingly, those factors with only minor influences on GPP and RE variability (e.g., soil properties) have significant contributions to the spatial variability in NEE. Such emerging factors and the interactions between climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits are not well represented in current terrestrial biosphere models, which should be considered in future model improvement to accurately predict the spatial pattern of carbon cycling across forests and grasslands globally.

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type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Carbon, Climatic variables, Net ecosystem exchange, Plant traits, Soil properties, Spatial variability
in
Agricultural and Forest Meteorology
volume
307
article number
108506
publisher
Elsevier
external identifiers
  • scopus:85107968565
ISSN
0168-1923
DOI
10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108506
language
English
LU publication?
yes
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Funding Information: The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31930072, 32071593, 31600352, 31600387, 32001135) and Shanghai Sailing Program (19YF1413200), the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning, ?Thousand Young Talents? Program in China and the special funding for the international conference of graduate students from East China Normal University. The study has been supported by the TRY initiative on plant traits (http://www.try-db.org). The TRY initiative and database is hosted, developed and maintained by J. Kattge and G. B?nisch (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany). TRY is currently supported by DIVERSITAS/Future Earth and German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig. Mana Gharun was funded by Swiss National Science Foundation project ICOS-CH Phase 2 20FI20_173691. Torbern Tagesson was funded by the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB; Dnr 95/16). This work used eddy-covariance data acquired and shared by the FLUXNET community, including these networks: AmeriFlux, AfriFlux, AsiaFlux, CarboAfrica, CarboEuropeIP, CarboItaly, CarboMont, ChinaFlux, Fluxnet-Canada, GreenGrass, ICOS, KoFlux, LBA, NECC, OzFlux-TERN, TCOS-Siberia, and USCCC. The ERA-Interim reanalysis data are provided by ECMWF and processed by LSCE. The FLUXNET eddy-covariance data processing and harmonization were carried out by the European Fluxes Database Cluster, AmeriFlux Management Project, and Fluxdata project of FLUXNET, with the support of CDIAC and ICOS Ecosystem Thematic Center, and the OzFlux, ChinaFlux and AsiaFlux offices. Funding for AmeriFlux data resources was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. Data collection from CZ_Bk1 and CZ_wet was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of CR within the CzeCOS program, grant number LM2018123. We acknowledge all researchers who have contributions to the eddy covariance flux measurements and support valuable data to this research. Funding Information: The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments. This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31930072, 32071593, 31600352, 31600387, 32001135) and Shanghai Sailing Program (19YF1413200), the Program for Professor of Special Appointment (Eastern Scholar) at Shanghai Institutions of Higher Learning, “Thousand Young Talents” Program in China and the special funding for the international conference of graduate students from East China Normal University. The study has been supported by the TRY initiative on plant traits ( http://www.try-db.org ). The TRY initiative and database is hosted, developed and maintained by J. Kattge and G. Bönisch (Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany). TRY is currently supported by DIVERSITAS/Future Earth and German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig. Mana Gharun was funded by Swiss National Science Foundation project ICOS-CH Phase 2 20FI20_173691. Torbern Tagesson was funded by the Swedish National Space Board (SNSB; Dnr 95/16). This work used eddy-covariance data acquired and shared by the FLUXNET community, including these networks: AmeriFlux, AfriFlux, AsiaFlux, CarboAfrica, CarboEuropeIP, CarboItaly, CarboMont, ChinaFlux, Fluxnet-Canada, GreenGrass, ICOS, KoFlux, LBA, NECC, OzFlux-TERN, TCOS-Siberia, and USCCC. The ERA-Interim reanalysis data are provided by ECMWF and processed by LSCE. The FLUXNET eddy-covariance data processing and harmonization were carried out by the European Fluxes Database Cluster, AmeriFlux Management Project, and Fluxdata project of FLUXNET, with the support of CDIAC and ICOS Ecosystem Thematic Center, and the OzFlux, ChinaFlux and AsiaFlux offices. Funding for AmeriFlux data resources was provided by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. Data collection from CZ_Bk1 and CZ_wet was supported by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of CR within the CzeCOS program, grant number LM2018123. We acknowledge all researchers who have contributions to the eddy covariance flux measurements and support valuable data to this research. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
id
b405e244-11b1-44a8-a2cd-fb14c6e29d98
date added to LUP
2021-08-11 11:12:06
date last changed
2022-04-27 03:03:59
@article{b405e244-11b1-44a8-a2cd-fb14c6e29d98,
  abstract     = {{<p>Compared to the well-known drivers of spatial variability in gross primary productivity (GPP), the relative importance of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits to the spatial variability in net ecosystem exchange of CO<sub>2</sub> between terrestrial ecosystem and atmosphere (NEE) is poorly understood. We used principal component regression to analyze data from 147 eddy flux sites to disentangle effects of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits on the spatial variation in annual NEE and its components (GPP and ecosystem respiration (RE)) across global forests and grasslands. Our results showed that the largest unique contribution (proportion of variance only explained by one class of variables) to NEE variance came from climatic variables for forests (24%-30%) and soil properties for grasslands (41%-54%). Specifically, mean annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration were the most important climatic variables driving forest NEE, whereas available soil water capacity, clay content and cation exchange capacity mainly influenced grassland NEE. Plant traits showed a small unique contribution to NEE in both forests and grasslands. However, leaf phosphorus content strongly interacted with soil total nitrogen density and clay content, and these combined factors represented a major contribution for grassland NEE. For GPP and RE, the majority of spatial variance was attributed to the common contribution of climate, soil and plant traits (50% - 62%, proportion of variance explained by more than one class of variables), rather than their unique contributions. Interestingly, those factors with only minor influences on GPP and RE variability (e.g., soil properties) have significant contributions to the spatial variability in NEE. Such emerging factors and the interactions between climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits are not well represented in current terrestrial biosphere models, which should be considered in future model improvement to accurately predict the spatial pattern of carbon cycling across forests and grasslands globally.</p>}},
  author       = {{Zhou, Huimin and Shao, Junjiong and Liu, Huiying and Du, Zhenggang and Zhou, Lingyan and Liu, Ruiqiang and Bernhofer, Christian and Grünwald, Thomas and Dušek, Jiří and Montagnani, Leonardo and Tagesson, Torbern and Black, Thomas Andrew and Jassal, Rachhpal and Woodgate, William and Biraud, Sébastien and Varlagin, Andrej and Mammarella, Ivan and Gharun, Mana and Shekhar, Ankit and Buchmann, Nina and Manco, Antonio and Magliulo, Enzo and Billesbach, Dave and Silberstein, Richard P. and Ohta, Takeshi and Yu, Guirui and Chen, Zhi and Zhang, Yiping and Zhou, Xuhui}},
  issn         = {{0168-1923}},
  keywords     = {{Carbon; Climatic variables; Net ecosystem exchange; Plant traits; Soil properties; Spatial variability}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  publisher    = {{Elsevier}},
  series       = {{Agricultural and Forest Meteorology}},
  title        = {{Relative importance of climatic variables, soil properties and plant traits to spatial variability in net CO<sub>2</sub> exchange across global forests and grasslands}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108506}},
  doi          = {{10.1016/j.agrformet.2021.108506}},
  volume       = {{307}},
  year         = {{2021}},
}