The browser you are using is not supported by this website. All versions of Internet Explorer are no longer supported, either by us or Microsoft (read more here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/windows/end-of-ie-support).

Please use a modern browser to fully experience our website, such as the newest versions of Edge, Chrome, Firefox or Safari etc.

Default user image.

Anders Lindroth

Professor

Default user image.

Thermal optimality of net ecosystem exchange of carbon dioxide and underlying mechanisms.

Author

  • Shuli Niu
  • Yiqi Luo
  • Shenfeng Fei
  • Wenping Yuan
  • David Schimel
  • Beverly E Law
  • Christof Ammann
  • M Altaf Arain
  • Almut Arneth
  • Marc Aubinet
  • Alan Barr
  • Jason Beringer
  • Christian Bernhofer
  • T Andrew Black
  • Nina Buchmann
  • Alessandro Cescatti
  • Jiquan Chen
  • Kenneth J Davis
  • Ebba Dellwik
  • Ankur R Desai
  • Sophia Etzold
  • Louis Francois
  • Damiano Gianelle
  • Bert Gielen
  • Allen Goldstein
  • Margriet Groenendijk
  • Lianhong Gu
  • Niall Hanan
  • Carole Helfter
  • Takashi Hirano
  • David Y Hollinger
  • Mike B Jones
  • Gerard Kiely
  • Thomas E Kolb
  • Werner L Kutsch
  • Peter Lafleur
  • David M Lawrence
  • Linghao Li
  • Anders Lindroth
  • Marcy Litvak
  • Denis Loustau
  • Magnus Lund
  • Michal Marek
  • Timothy A Martin
  • Giorgio Matteucci
  • Mirco Migliavacca
  • Leonardo Montagnani
  • Eddy Moors
  • J William Munger
  • Asko Noormets
  • Walter Oechel
  • Janusz Olejnik
  • Kyaw Tha Paw U
  • Kim Pilegaard
  • Serge Rambal
  • Antonio Raschi
  • Russell L Scott
  • Günther Seufert
  • Donatella Spano
  • Paul Stoy
  • Mark A Sutton
  • Andrej Varlagin
  • Timo Vesala
  • Ensheng Weng
  • Georg Wohlfahrt
  • Bai Yang
  • Zhongda Zhang
  • Xuhui Zhou
Show all

Summary, in English

• It is well established that individual organisms can acclimate and adapt to temperature to optimize their functioning. However, thermal optimization of ecosystems, as an assemblage of organisms, has not been examined at broad spatial and temporal scales. • Here, we compiled data from 169 globally distributed sites of eddy covariance and quantified the temperature response functions of net ecosystem exchange (NEE), an ecosystem-level property, to determine whether NEE shows thermal optimality and to explore the underlying mechanisms. • We found that the temperature response of NEE followed a peak curve, with the optimum temperature (corresponding to the maximum magnitude of NEE) being positively correlated with annual mean temperature over years and across sites. Shifts of the optimum temperature of NEE were mostly a result of temperature acclimation of gross primary productivity (upward shift of optimum temperature) rather than changes in the temperature sensitivity of ecosystem respiration. • Ecosystem-level thermal optimality is a newly revealed ecosystem property, presumably reflecting associated evolutionary adaptation of organisms within ecosystems, and has the potential to significantly regulate ecosystem-climate change feedbacks. The thermal optimality of NEE has implications for understanding fundamental properties of ecosystems in changing environments and benchmarking global models.

Department/s

  • Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
  • eSSENCE: The e-Science Collaboration
  • BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate

Publishing year

2012

Language

English

Pages

775-783

Publication/Series

New Phytologist

Volume

194

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Topic

  • Physical Geography

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1469-8137