scholarly journals Linking aboveground net primary productivity to soil carbon and dissolved organic carbon in complex terrain

2013 ◽  
Vol 118 (3) ◽  
pp. 1225-1236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fox S. Peterson ◽  
Kate J. Lajtha
Geosciences ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 318
Author(s):  
Pamela Soto-Rogel ◽  
Juan-Carlos Aravena ◽  
Wolfgang Jens-Henrik Meier ◽  
Pamela Gross ◽  
Claudio Pérez ◽  
...  

Spatio-temporal patterns of climatic variability have effects on the environmental conditions of a given land territory and consequently determine the evolution of its productive activities. One of the most direct ways to evaluate this relationship is to measure the condition of the vegetation cover and land-use information. In southernmost South America there is a limited number of long-term studies on these matters, an incomplete network of weather stations and almost no database on ecosystems productivity. In the present work, we characterized the climate variability of the Magellan Region, southernmost Chilean Patagonia, for the last 34 years, studying key variables associated with one of its main economic sectors, sheep production, and evaluating the effect of extreme weather events on ecosystem productivity and sheep production. Our results show a marked multi-decadal character of the climatic variables, with a trend to more arid conditions for the last 8 years, together with an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events. Significant percentages of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) variance is explained by high precipitation, mesic temperatures, and low evapotranspiration. These conditions are, however, spatially distributed in the transition zone between deciduous forests and steppe and do not represent a general pattern for the entire region. Strong precipitation and wind velocity negatively affect lamb survival, while temperature and ANPP are positively correlated. The impact of extreme weather events on ANP and sheep production (SP) was in most of the cases significantly negative, with the exception of maximum temperature that correlated with an increase of ANPP, and droughts that showed a non-significant negative trend in ANPP. The examination of these relationships is urgent under the current scenario of climate change with the acceleration of the environmental trends here detected.


1986 ◽  
Vol 43 (6) ◽  
pp. 1259-1270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce J. Peterson ◽  
John E. Hobbie ◽  
Teresa L. Corliss

The carbon cycle of the Kuparuk River, a meandering tundra stream, is dominated by inputs of eroding peat and leaching dissolved organic carbon from the tundra. Net production of epilithic algae is about 13 g C∙m−2∙yr−1, an order of magnitude less than inputs of allochthonous particulate organic carbon and two orders of magnitude less than inputs of dissolved organic carbon. The streamwater has a mean total organic carbon concentration of 6.8 mg∙L−1, and the annual export of organic carbon from the watershed is 2–3 t∙km−2∙yr−1; both are similar to the average for temperate streams. However, because of the low primary productivity of tundra vegetation, the export of organic carbon from the watershed via the river is a larger fraction (2–6%) of the total watershed net primary production than the 0.1–0.4% usually found for temperate rivers.


1998 ◽  
Vol 353 (1365) ◽  
pp. 131-140 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Beerling ◽  
F. I. Woodward ◽  
M. R. Lomas ◽  
M. A. Wills ◽  
W. P. Quick ◽  
...  

Geochemical models of atmospheric evolution predict that during the late Carboniferous, ca . 300 Ma, atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations were 35% and 0.03%, respectively. Both gases compete with each other for ribulose–1,5–bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase–the primary C–fixing enzyme in C 3 land plants: and the absolute concentrations and the ratio of the two in the atmosphere have the potential to strongly influence land–plant function. The Carboniferous therefore represents an era of potentially strong feedback between atmospheric composition and plant function. We assessed some implications of this ratio of atmospheric gases on plant function using experimental and modelling approaches. After six weeks growth at 35% O 2 and 0.03% carbon dioxide, no photosynthetic acclimation was observed in the woody species Betula pubescens and Hedera helix relative to those plants grown at 21% O 2 . Leaf photosynthetic rates were 29% lower in the high O 2 environment compared to the controls. A global–scale analysis of the impact of the late Carboniferous climate and atmospheric composition on vegetation function was determined by driving a process–based vegetation–biogeochemistry model with a Carboniferous global palaeoclimate simulated by the Universities Global Atmospheric Modelling Programme General Circulation Model. Global patterns of net primary productivity, leaf area index and soil carbon concentration for the equilibrium model solutions showed generally low values everywhere, compared with the present day, except for a central band in the northern land mass extension of Gondwana, where high values were predicted. The areas of high soil carbon accumulation closely match the known distribution of late Carboniferous coals. Sensitivity analysis with the model indicated that the increase in O 2 concentration from 21% to 35% reduced global net primary productivity by 18.7% or by 6.3 GtC yr –1 . Further work is required to collate and map at the global scale the distribution of vegetation types, and evidence for wildfires, for the late Carboniferous to test our predictions.


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