It’s the Economy, Stupid: Applying (Micro)economic Principles to Microbiome Science

A key challenge in microbiome science is the scale mismatch problem, which arises when the scale at which microbial communities are sampled, interrogated, and averaged is different from the scale at which individual microorganisms within those communities interact with each other and with their environment (D. W.

Comparing deuterium excess to large-scale precipitation recycling models in the tropics

Precipitation recycling is essential to sustaining regional ecosystems and water supplies, and it is impacted by land development and climate change. This is especially true in the tropics, where dense vegetation greatly influences recycling. Unfortunately, large-scale models of recycling often exhibit high uncertainty, complicating efforts to estimate recycling. Here, we examine how deuterium excess (d-excess), a stable-isotope quantity sensitive to recycling effects, acts as an observational proxy for recycling. While past studies have connected variability in d-excess to precipitation origins at local or regional scales, our study leverages >3000 precipitation isotope samples to quantitatively compare d-excess against three contemporary recycling models across the global tropics. Using rank-correlation, we find statistically significant agreement ($$\bar \tau = 0.52$$ τ ¯ = 0.52 to $$0.70$$ 0.70 ) between tropical d-excess and recycling that is strongly mediated by seasonal precipitation, vegetation density, and scale mismatch. Our results detail the complex relationship between d-excess and precipitation recycling, suggesting avenues for further investigation.

Accounting for Representativeness in the Verification of Ensemble Precipitation Forecasts

Spatial variability of precipitation is analyzed to characterize to what extent precipitation observed at a single location is representative of precipitation over a larger area. Characterization of precipitation representativeness is made in probabilistic terms using a parametric approach, namely, by fitting a censored shifted gamma distribution to observation measurements. Parameters are estimated and analyzed for independent precipitation datasets, among which one is based on high-density gauge measurements. The results of this analysis serve as a basis for accounting for representativeness error in an ensemble verification process. Uncertainty associated with the scale mismatch between forecast and observation is accounted for by applying a perturbed-ensemble approach before the computation of scores. Verification results reveal a large impact of representativeness error on precipitation forecast reliability and skill estimates. The parametric model and estimated coefficients presented in this study could be used directly for forecast postprocessing to partly compensate for the limitation of any modeling system in terms of precipitation subgrid-scale variability.