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 language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 652-668 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | New Phytologist |
Volume | 221 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2019 |
Externally published | Yes |
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.
Funders | Funder number |
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Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung | P2EZP2_162293, P300P2_174477 |
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung | |
Stavros Niarchos Foundation | |
ETH Zürich Foundation | ETH-29 14-2 |
ETH Zürich Foundation |
Keywords
- carbon cycle
- ecosystem modelling
- nonstructural carbohydrates
- photosynthesis
- plant growth
- respiration