Simple additive effects are rare: a quantitative review of plant biomass and soil process responses to combined manipulations of CO 2 and temperature
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: In recent years, increased awareness of the potential interactions between rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations ([ CO2 ]) and temperature has illustrated the importance of multifactorial ecosystem manipulation experiments for validating Earth System models. To address the urgent need for increased understanding of responses in multifactorial experiments, this article synthesizes how ecosystem productivity and soil processes respond to combined warming and [ CO2 ] manipulation, and compares it with those obtained in single factor [ CO2 ] and temperature manipulation experiments. Across all combined elevated [ CO2 ] and warming experiments, biomass production and soil respiration were typically enhanced. Responses to the combined treatment were more similar to those in the [ CO2 ]-only treatment than to those in the warming-only treatment. In contrast to warming-only experiments, both the combined and the [ CO2 ]-only treatments elicited larger stimulation of fine root biomass than of aboveground biomass, consistently stimulated soil respiration, and decreased foliar nitrogen (N) concentration. Nonetheless, mineral N availability declined less in the combined treatment than in the [ CO2 ]-only treatment, possibly due to the warming-induced acceleration of decomposition, implying that progressive nitrogen limitation (PNL) may not occur as commonly as anticipated from single factor [ CO2 ] treatment studies. Responses of total plant biomass, especially of aboveground biomass, revealed antagonistic interactions between elevated [ CO2 ] and warming, i.e. the response to the combined treatment was usually less-than-additive. This implies that productivity projections might be overestimated when models are parameterized based on single factor responses. Our results highlight the need for more (and especially more long-term) multifactor manipulation experiments. Because single factor CO2 responses often dominated over warming responses in the combined treatments, our results also suggest that projected responses to future global warming in Earth System models should not be parameterized using single factor warming experiments.
Source: Global Change Biology
Authors: Wouter I. J. Dieleman, Sara Vicca, Feike A. Dijkstra, Frank Hagedorn, Mark J. Hovenden, Klaus S. Larsen, Jack A. Morgan, Astrid Volder, Claus Beier, Jeffrey S. Dukes, John King, Sebastian Leuzinger, Sune Linder, Yiqi Luo, Ram Oren, Paolo De Angelis, David Tingey, Marcel R. Hoosbeek, Ivan A. Janssens
Institutions: University of Antwerp, James Cook University, The University of Sydney, Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, University of Tasmania, Technical University of Denmark, Agricultural Research Service, Texas A&M University, Purdue University West Lafayette, North Carolina State University, University of Basel, ETH Zurich, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, University of Oklahoma, Duke University, Università degli Studi della Tuscia, Wageningen University & Research
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
SDGs: Climate action, Life on land
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2136939467