Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate
Plant growth and distribution in high-latitude tundra ecosystems is strongly limited by nutrient availability and is critical for quantifying centennial-scale carbon-climate interactions. However, land model representations of plant–nutrient interactions are uncertain, leading to poor comparisons wi...
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Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 https://doaj.org/article/4d9b3ad0c6e6454d9f452326cbebabc3 |
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:4d9b3ad0c6e6454d9f452326cbebabc3 2023-09-05T13:17:48+02:00 Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate William J Riley Zelalem A Mekonnen Jinyun Tang Qing Zhu Nicholas J Bouskill Robert F Grant 2021-01-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 https://doaj.org/article/4d9b3ad0c6e6454d9f452326cbebabc3 EN eng IOP Publishing https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/4d9b3ad0c6e6454d9f452326cbebabc3 Environmental Research Letters, Vol 16, Iss 7, p 074047 (2021) shrubification shrub expansion tundra carbon cycle climate Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 article 2021 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 2023-08-13T00:37:11Z Plant growth and distribution in high-latitude tundra ecosystems is strongly limited by nutrient availability and is critical for quantifying centennial-scale carbon-climate interactions. However, land model representations of plant–nutrient interactions are uncertain, leading to poor comparisons with high-latitude observations. Although it has been recognized for decades in the observational community that plants continue to acquire nutrients well past when aboveground activity has ceased, most large-scale land models ignore this process. Here we address the role tundra plant nutrient acquisition during the non-growing season (NGS) has on centennial-scale vegetation growth and dynamics, with a focus on shrub expansion. We apply a well-tested mechanistic model of coupled plant, microbial, hydrological, and thermal dynamics that explicitly represents nutrient acquisition based on plant and microbial traits, thereby allowing a prognostic assessment of NGS nutrient uptake. We first show that the model accurately represents observed seasonality of NGS plant nutrient uptake in a northern Alaskan tundra site. Applying the model across the North America tundra indicates that NGS nutrient uptake is consistent with observations and ranges between ∼5% and 50% of annual uptake, with large spatial variability and dependence on plant functional type. We show that NGS plant nutrient acquisition strongly enhances modeled 21 ^st century tundra shrub growth and expansion rates. Our results suggest that without NGS nutrient uptake, total shrub aboveground dominance would be ∼50% lower, limited primarily by their inability to grow tall enough to maximize their inherent capacity for light competition. Evergreen shrubs would be more strongly affected because of their relatively lower capacity for nutrient remobilization and acquisition compared to deciduous shrubs. Our results highlight the importance of NGS plant and soil processes on high-latitude biogeochemistry and vegetation dynamics and motivate new observations and model ... Article in Journal/Newspaper Arctic Tundra Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Arctic Environmental Research Letters 16 7 074047 |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
shrubification shrub expansion tundra carbon cycle climate Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
spellingShingle |
shrubification shrub expansion tundra carbon cycle climate Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 William J Riley Zelalem A Mekonnen Jinyun Tang Qing Zhu Nicholas J Bouskill Robert F Grant Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate |
topic_facet |
shrubification shrub expansion tundra carbon cycle climate Environmental technology. Sanitary engineering TD1-1066 Environmental sciences GE1-350 Science Q Physics QC1-999 |
description |
Plant growth and distribution in high-latitude tundra ecosystems is strongly limited by nutrient availability and is critical for quantifying centennial-scale carbon-climate interactions. However, land model representations of plant–nutrient interactions are uncertain, leading to poor comparisons with high-latitude observations. Although it has been recognized for decades in the observational community that plants continue to acquire nutrients well past when aboveground activity has ceased, most large-scale land models ignore this process. Here we address the role tundra plant nutrient acquisition during the non-growing season (NGS) has on centennial-scale vegetation growth and dynamics, with a focus on shrub expansion. We apply a well-tested mechanistic model of coupled plant, microbial, hydrological, and thermal dynamics that explicitly represents nutrient acquisition based on plant and microbial traits, thereby allowing a prognostic assessment of NGS nutrient uptake. We first show that the model accurately represents observed seasonality of NGS plant nutrient uptake in a northern Alaskan tundra site. Applying the model across the North America tundra indicates that NGS nutrient uptake is consistent with observations and ranges between ∼5% and 50% of annual uptake, with large spatial variability and dependence on plant functional type. We show that NGS plant nutrient acquisition strongly enhances modeled 21 ^st century tundra shrub growth and expansion rates. Our results suggest that without NGS nutrient uptake, total shrub aboveground dominance would be ∼50% lower, limited primarily by their inability to grow tall enough to maximize their inherent capacity for light competition. Evergreen shrubs would be more strongly affected because of their relatively lower capacity for nutrient remobilization and acquisition compared to deciduous shrubs. Our results highlight the importance of NGS plant and soil processes on high-latitude biogeochemistry and vegetation dynamics and motivate new observations and model ... |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
William J Riley Zelalem A Mekonnen Jinyun Tang Qing Zhu Nicholas J Bouskill Robert F Grant |
author_facet |
William J Riley Zelalem A Mekonnen Jinyun Tang Qing Zhu Nicholas J Bouskill Robert F Grant |
author_sort |
William J Riley |
title |
Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate |
title_short |
Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate |
title_full |
Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate |
title_fullStr |
Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate |
title_full_unstemmed |
Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate |
title_sort |
non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate |
publisher |
IOP Publishing |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 https://doaj.org/article/4d9b3ad0c6e6454d9f452326cbebabc3 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Tundra |
op_source |
Environmental Research Letters, Vol 16, Iss 7, p 074047 (2021) |
op_relation |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 https://doaj.org/toc/1748-9326 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 1748-9326 https://doaj.org/article/4d9b3ad0c6e6454d9f452326cbebabc3 |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 |
container_title |
Environmental Research Letters |
container_volume |
16 |
container_issue |
7 |
container_start_page |
074047 |
_version_ |
1776198832320675840 |