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: | http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1813398 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1813398 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 |
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ftosti:oai:osti.gov:1813398 2023-07-30T04:02:03+02:00 Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate Riley, William J. Mekonnen, Zelalem A. Tang, Jinyun Zhu, Qing Bouskill, Nicholas J. Grant, Robert F. 2021-09-22 application/pdf http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1813398 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1813398 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 unknown http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1813398 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1813398 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES 2021 ftosti https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 2023-07-11T10:06:07Z 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 21st 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 ... Other/Unknown Material Arctic Tundra SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) Arctic Environmental Research Letters 16 7 074047 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
SciTec Connect (Office of Scientific and Technical Information - OSTI, U.S. Department of Energy) |
op_collection_id |
ftosti |
language |
unknown |
topic |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Riley, William J. Mekonnen, Zelalem A. Tang, Jinyun Zhu, Qing Bouskill, Nicholas J. Grant, Robert F. Non-growing season plant nutrient uptake controls Arctic tundra vegetation composition under future climate |
topic_facet |
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES |
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 21st 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 ... |
author |
Riley, William J. Mekonnen, Zelalem A. Tang, Jinyun Zhu, Qing Bouskill, Nicholas J. Grant, Robert F. |
author_facet |
Riley, William J. Mekonnen, Zelalem A. Tang, Jinyun Zhu, Qing Bouskill, Nicholas J. Grant, Robert F. |
author_sort |
Riley, William J. |
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 |
publishDate |
2021 |
url |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1813398 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1813398 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 |
geographic |
Arctic |
geographic_facet |
Arctic |
genre |
Arctic Tundra |
genre_facet |
Arctic Tundra |
op_relation |
http://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1813398 https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1813398 https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 doi:10.1088/1748-9326/ac0e63 |
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_ |
1772812781523828736 |