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Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness

Increasing aridity and drought severity forecast for many land areas could reduce the land carbon (C) sink. However, with limited long-term direct measures, it is difficult to distinguish direct drying effects from counter effects of CO(2) enrichment and nitrogen (N) deposition. Here, we document a...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Brookshire, E. N. J., Weaver, T.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Pub. Group 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479003/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25972300
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8148
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author Brookshire, E. N. J.
Weaver, T.
author_facet Brookshire, E. N. J.
Weaver, T.
author_sort Brookshire, E. N. J.
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description Increasing aridity and drought severity forecast for many land areas could reduce the land carbon (C) sink. However, with limited long-term direct measures, it is difficult to distinguish direct drying effects from counter effects of CO(2) enrichment and nitrogen (N) deposition. Here, we document a >50% decline in production of a native C(3) grassland over four decades and assign the forcing and timing to increasing aridity and specifically to declining late-summer rainfall. Analysis of C and N stable isotopes in biomass suggests that enhanced water use efficiency via CO(2) enrichment may have slightly ameliorated the productivity decline but that changes in N had no effects. Identical declines in a long-term snow-addition experiment definitively identified increasing late-summer dryness as the cause. Our results demonstrate lasting consequences of recent climate change on grassland production and underscore the importance of understanding past climate–ecosystem coupling to predicting future responses to changing climate.
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spelling pubmed-44790032015-06-29 Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness Brookshire, E. N. J. Weaver, T. Nat Commun Article Increasing aridity and drought severity forecast for many land areas could reduce the land carbon (C) sink. However, with limited long-term direct measures, it is difficult to distinguish direct drying effects from counter effects of CO(2) enrichment and nitrogen (N) deposition. Here, we document a >50% decline in production of a native C(3) grassland over four decades and assign the forcing and timing to increasing aridity and specifically to declining late-summer rainfall. Analysis of C and N stable isotopes in biomass suggests that enhanced water use efficiency via CO(2) enrichment may have slightly ameliorated the productivity decline but that changes in N had no effects. Identical declines in a long-term snow-addition experiment definitively identified increasing late-summer dryness as the cause. Our results demonstrate lasting consequences of recent climate change on grassland production and underscore the importance of understanding past climate–ecosystem coupling to predicting future responses to changing climate. Nature Pub. Group 2015-05-14 /pmc/articles/PMC4479003/ /pubmed/25972300 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8148 Text en Copyright © 2015, Nature Publishing Group, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited. All Rights Reserved. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in the credit line; if the material is not included under the Creative Commons license, users will need to obtain permission from the license holder to reproduce the material. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Article
Brookshire, E. N. J.
Weaver, T.
Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness
title Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness
title_full Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness
title_fullStr Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness
title_full_unstemmed Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness
title_short Long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness
title_sort long-term decline in grassland productivity driven by increasing dryness
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4479003/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25972300
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8148
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