Rain is important for how carbon dioxide affects grasslands
Experiment with carbon dioxide, photo by Louise C. Andresen.
An important, but uncertain, factor in climate research is the extent to which all ecosystems can accumulate carbon from the increasing atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
Areas covered by grass and similar vegetation play a significant role in this context. Worldwide these areas cover 29 per cent of Earth’s ice-free land surface.
“These grasslands have great importance for carbon storage,” says Louise C. Andresen, a researcher at the University of Gothenburg and one of the researchers behind the new research study.
In the study the researchers examined how 19 different land areas that were exposed to varying amounts of precipitation – in Australia, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United States, China and elsewhere – reacted in field-experiments with elevated carbon dioxide concentrations.
“In general the response was an increase in plant growth of less than 10 per cent, but there were large variations.”
Spring rain affects plant growth
The results showed that it was easiest to predict how vegetation reacted to carbon dioxide during rainy periods. As the researchers expected, spring rain had a significant impact on the grasslands.
“Vegetation on grasslands with a very wet spring season increased most with elevated carbon dioxide concentration,” Andresen says.
In addition, biomass on land with a very dry low season increased more than on land with a wet low season.
“Elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide allows plants to save water,” Andresen adds. “We found that both the extra carbon dioxide and better water household helped plants in dry ecosystems too.”
Article name: Globally consistent influences of seasonal precipitation limit grassland biomass response to elevated CO2.
Contact: Louise C. Andresen, a researcher at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Gothenburg; e-mail: louise.andresen@gu.se; mobile: +46 (0)721-84 06 53
Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0356-x
https://science.gu.se/english/News/News_detail/?languageId=100001&contentId=..
Media Contact
All latest news from the category: Ecology, The Environment and Conservation
This complex theme deals primarily with interactions between organisms and the environmental factors that impact them, but to a greater extent between individual inanimate environmental factors.
innovations-report offers informative reports and articles on topics such as climate protection, landscape conservation, ecological systems, wildlife and nature parks and ecosystem efficiency and balance.
Newest articles
First-of-its-kind study uses remote sensing to monitor plastic debris in rivers and lakes
Remote sensing creates a cost-effective solution to monitoring plastic pollution. A first-of-its-kind study from researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities shows how remote sensing can help monitor and…
Laser-based artificial neuron mimics nerve cell functions at lightning speed
With a processing speed a billion times faster than nature, chip-based laser neuron could help advance AI tasks such as pattern recognition and sequence prediction. Researchers have developed a laser-based…
Optimising the processing of plastic waste
Just one look in the yellow bin reveals a colourful jumble of different types of plastic. However, the purer and more uniform plastic waste is, the easier it is to…