Modelling carbon sources and sinks in terrestrial vegetation

Simone Fatichi*, Christoforos Pappas, Jakob Zscheischler, Sebastian Leuzinger

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalReview articleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

(Table presented.). Summary: The increase in atmospheric CO2 in the future is one of the most certain projections in environmental sciences. Understanding whether vegetation carbon assimilation, growth, and changes in vegetation carbon stocks are affected by higher atmospheric CO2 and translating this understanding in mechanistic vegetation models is of utmost importance. This is highlighted by inconsistencies between global-scale studies that attribute terrestrial carbon sinks to CO2 stimulation of gross and net primary production on the one hand, and forest inventories, tree-scale studies, and plant physiological evidence showing a much less pronounced CO2 fertilization effect on the other hand. Here, we review how plant carbon sources and sinks are currently described in terrestrial biosphere models. We highlight an uneven representation of complexity between the modelling of photosynthesis and other processes, such as plant respiration, direct carbon sinks, and carbon allocation, largely driven by available observations. Despite a general lack of data on carbon sink dynamics to drive model improvements, ways forward toward a mechanistic representation of plant carbon sinks are discussed, leveraging on results obtained from plant-scale models and on observations geared toward model developments.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)652-668
Number of pages17
JournalNew Phytologist
Volume221
Issue number2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2019
Externally publishedYes

Funding

SF thanks the support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the ETH Zurich Foundation (grant ETH-29 14-2). CP acknowledges the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation and the ETH Zurich Foundation (grants P2EZP2_162293, P300P2_174477). We thank the three anonymous reviewers who helped us to considerably improve the manuscript, and we apologize to all authors of relevant articles we could not cite due to reference number limitations. We finally thank Irene F. Garrido for the initial illustration of Fig. 4.

FundersFunder number
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen ForschungP2EZP2_162293, P300P2_174477
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
Stavros Niarchos Foundation
ETH Zürich FoundationETH-29 14-2
ETH Zürich Foundation

    Keywords

    • carbon cycle
    • ecosystem modelling
    • nonstructural carbohydrates
    • photosynthesis
    • plant growth
    • respiration

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