TY - JOUR

T1 - The three major axes of terrestrial ecosystem function

AU - Migliavacca, Mirco

AU - Musavi, Talie

AU - Mahecha, Miguel D.

AU - Nelson, Jacob A.

AU - Knauer, Jürgen

AU - Baldocchi, Dennis D.

AU - Perez-Priego, Oscar

AU - Christiansen, Rune

AU - Peters, Jonas

AU - Anderson, Karen

AU - Bahn, Michael

AU - Black, T. Andrew

AU - Blanken, Peter D.

AU - Bonal, Damien

AU - Buchmann, Nina

AU - Caldararu, Silvia

AU - Carrara, Arnaud

AU - Carvalhais, Nuno

AU - Cescatti, Alessandro

AU - Chen, Jiquan

AU - Cleverly, Jamie

AU - Cremonese, Edoardo

AU - Desai, Ankur R.

AU - El-Madany, Tarek S.

AU - Farella, Martha M.

AU - Fernández-Martínez, Marcos

AU - Filippa, Gianluca

AU - Forkel, Matthias

AU - Galvagno, Marta

AU - Gomarasca, Ulisse

AU - Gough, Christopher M.

AU - Göckede, Mathias

AU - Ibrom, Andreas

AU - Ikawa, Hiroki

AU - Janssens, Ivan A.

AU - Jung, Martin

AU - Kattge, Jens

AU - Keenan, Trevor F.

AU - Knohl, Alexander

AU - Kobayashi, Hideki

AU - Kraemer, Guido

AU - Law, Beverly E.

AU - Liddell, Michael J.

AU - Ma, Xuanlong

AU - Mammarella, Ivan

AU - Martini, David

AU - Macfarlane, Craig

AU - Matteucci, Giorgio

AU - Montagnani, Leonardo

AU - Pabon-Moreno, Daniel E.

AU - Panigada, Cinzia

AU - Papale, Dario

AU - Pendall, Elise

AU - Penuelas, Josep

AU - Phillips, Richard P.

AU - Reich, Peter B.

AU - Rossini, Micol

AU - Rotenberg, Eyal

AU - Scott, Russell L.

AU - Stahl, Clement

AU - Weber, Ulrich

AU - Wohlfahrt, Georg

AU - Wolf, Sebastian

AU - Wright, Ian J.

AU - Yakir, Dan

AU - Zaehle, Sönke

AU - Reichstein, Markus

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - The leaf economics spectrum1,2 and the global spectrum of plant forms and functions3 revealed fundamental axes of variation in plant traits, which represent different ecological strategies that are shaped by the evolutionary development of plant species2. Ecosystem functions depend on environmental conditions and the traits of species that comprise the ecological communities4. However, the axes of variation of ecosystem functions are largely unknown, which limits our understanding of how ecosystems respond as a whole to anthropogenic drivers, climate and environmental variability4,5. Here we derive a set of ecosystem functions6 from a dataset of surface gas exchange measurements across major terrestrial biomes. We find that most of the variability within ecosystem functions (71.8%) is captured by three key axes. The first axis reflects maximum ecosystem productivity and is mostly explained by vegetation structure. The second axis reflects ecosystem water-use strategies and is jointly explained by variation in vegetation height and climate. The third axis, which represents ecosystem carbon-use efficiency, features a gradient related to aridity, and is explained primarily by variation in vegetation structure. We show that two state-of-the-art land surface models reproduce the first and most important axis of ecosystem functions. However, the models tend to simulate more strongly correlated functions than those observed, which limits their ability to accurately predict the full range of responses to environmental changes in carbon, water and energy cycling in terrestrial ecosystems7,8.

AB - The leaf economics spectrum1,2 and the global spectrum of plant forms and functions3 revealed fundamental axes of variation in plant traits, which represent different ecological strategies that are shaped by the evolutionary development of plant species2. Ecosystem functions depend on environmental conditions and the traits of species that comprise the ecological communities4. However, the axes of variation of ecosystem functions are largely unknown, which limits our understanding of how ecosystems respond as a whole to anthropogenic drivers, climate and environmental variability4,5. Here we derive a set of ecosystem functions6 from a dataset of surface gas exchange measurements across major terrestrial biomes. We find that most of the variability within ecosystem functions (71.8%) is captured by three key axes. The first axis reflects maximum ecosystem productivity and is mostly explained by vegetation structure. The second axis reflects ecosystem water-use strategies and is jointly explained by variation in vegetation height and climate. The third axis, which represents ecosystem carbon-use efficiency, features a gradient related to aridity, and is explained primarily by variation in vegetation structure. We show that two state-of-the-art land surface models reproduce the first and most important axis of ecosystem functions. However, the models tend to simulate more strongly correlated functions than those observed, which limits their ability to accurately predict the full range of responses to environmental changes in carbon, water and energy cycling in terrestrial ecosystems7,8.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85115297278&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1038/s41586-021-03939-9

DO - 10.1038/s41586-021-03939-9

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 34552242

AN - SCOPUS:85115297278

VL - 598

SP - 468

EP - 472

JO - Nature

JF - Nature

SN - 0028-0836

IS - 7881

ER -