CNR ExploRA

Articolo in rivista, 2017, ENG, 10.1038/srep43952

Shrubland primary production and soil respiration diverge along European climate gradient

Sabine Reinsch 1, Eva Koller 2, Alwyn Sowerby 1, Giovanbattista de Dato 3,4, Marc Estiarte 5,6, Gabriele Guidolotti 7, Edit Kovács-Láng 8, György Kröel-Dulay 8, Eszter Lellei-Kovács 8, Klaus S. Larsen 9, Dario Liberati 4, Josep Peñuelas 5,6, Johannes Ransijn 9, David A. Robinson 1, Inger K. Schmidt 9, Andrew R. Smith 1,2, Albert Tietema 10, Jeffrey S. Dukes 11,12, Claus Beier 9, Bridget A. Emmett 1

1 Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Environment Centre Wales, Deiniol Rd, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, United Kingdom. 2 School of Environment, Natural Resources and Geography, Bangor University, Bangor, Gwynedd, LL57 2UW, United Kingdom. 3 Council for Agricultural Research and Economics - Forestry Research Centre (CREA-SEL), Viale Santa Margherita, 80 - 52100 Arezzo (AR), Italy. 4 Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-food and Forest systems (DIBAF), University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy. 5 SCIC, Global Ecology Unit, CREAF-CSIC_UAB, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Catalonia, E-08193 Spain. 6 CREAF, Cerdanyola del Vallès, Barcelona, Catalonia, E-08193 Spain. 7 Institute of Agro-Environmental & Forest Biology (IBAF), National Research Council (CNR), Porano, TR, Italy. 8 Institute of Ecology and Botany, MTA Centre for Ecological Research, Alkotmány u. 2-4., 2163-Vácrátót, Hungary. 9 Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, 1958 Frederiksberg C, Denmark. 10 Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics, University of Amsterdam, PO Box 94240, 1090 GE Amsterdam, The Netherlands. 11 Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, United States of America. 12 Department of Biological Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, 47907, United States of Americ

Above- and belowground carbon (C) stores of terrestrial ecosystems are vulnerable to environmental change. Ecosystem C balances in response to environmental changes have been quantified at individual sites, but the magnitudes and directions of these responses along environmental gradients remain uncertain. Here we show the responses of ecosystem C to 8-12 years of experimental drought and night-time warming across an aridity gradient spanning seven European shrublands using indices of C assimilation (aboveground net primary production: aNPP) and soil C efflux (soil respiration: Rs). The changes of aNPP and Rs in response to drought indicated that wet systems had an overall risk of increased loss of C but drier systems did not. Warming had no consistent effect on aNPP across the climate gradient, but suppressed Rs more at the drier sites. Our findings suggest that above- and belowground C fluxes can decouple, and provide no evidence of acclimation to environmental change at a decadal timescale. aNPP and Rs especially differed in their sensitivity to drought and warming, with belowground processes being more sensitive to environmental change.

Scientific reports (Nature Publishing Group)