Shrubland primary production and soil respiration diverge along European climate gradient

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  • Sabine Reinsch
  • Eva Koller
  • Alwyn Sowerby
  • Giovanbattista de Dato
    University of Tuscia
  • Marc Estiarte
    Cerdanyola del Vallès
  • Gabriele Guidolotti
    Institute of Agro-Environmental & Forest Biology
  • Edit Kovács-Láng
    Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research
  • György Kröel-Dulay
    Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research
  • Eszter Lellei-Kovács
    Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research
  • Klaus S. Larsen
    University of Copenhagen
  • Dario Liberati
    University of Tuscia
  • Josep Peñuelas
    Cerdanyola del Vallès
  • Johannes Ransijn
    University of Copenhagen
  • David Robinson
    NERC (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology)
  • Inger K. Schmidt
    University of Copenhagen
  • Andrew Smith
  • Albert Tietema
    University of Amsterdam
  • Jeffrey S. Dukes
    Purdue University
  • Claus Beier
    University of Copenhagen
  • Bridget Emmett
Above- and belowground carbon (C) stores of terrestrial ecosystems are vulnerable to environmental change. Ecosystem C balances in response to environmental changes have been quantified at individual sites, but the magnitudes and directions of these responses along environmental gradients remain uncertain. Here we show the responses of ecosystem C to 8-12 years of experimental drought and night-time warming across an aridity gradient spanning seven European shrublands using indices of C a ssimilation
(aboveground net primary production: aNPP) and soil C efflux (soil respiration: Rs). The changes of aNPP and Rs in response to drought indicated that wet systems had an overall risk of increased loss of C but drier systems did not. Warming had no consistent effect on aNPP across the climate gradient and Rs increased from drier to wetter sites. Our findings suggest that the above- and belowground C fluxes become decoupled, with no evidence of acclimation at a decadal timescale. aNPP and Rs especially differed in 3 their sensitivity to drought and warming, with belowground processes being more sensitive to environmental change.
Original languageEnglish
Article number43952
JournalScientific Reports
Volume7
Early online date3 Mar 2017
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2017

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