Implications of improved representations of plant respiration in a changing climate

• Published in: Nature Communications
• Main Authors: Huntingford, Chris, Atkin, Owen K., Martinez-de la Torre, Alberto, Mercado, Lina M., Heskel, Mary, Harper, Anna B., Bloomfield, Keith J., O'Sullivan, Odhran S., Reich, Peter B., Wythers, Kirk R., Butler, Ethan E., Chen, Ming, Griffin, Kevin L., Meir, Patrick, Tjoelker, Mark, Turnbull, Matthew H., Sitch, Stephen, Wiltshire, Andrew J., Malhi, Yadvinder
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Publishing Group 2017
• Subjects: International Polar Year
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/1912/9390

© The Author(s), 2017. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Nature Communications 8 (2017): 1602, doi:10.1038/s41467-017-01774-z. Land-atmosphere exchanges influence atmospheric CO2. Emphasis has been on describing photosynthetic CO2 uptake, but less on respiration losses. New global datasets describe upper canopy dark respiration (Rd) and temperature dependencies. This allows characterisation of baseline Rd, instantaneous temperature responses and longer-term thermal acclimation effects. Here we show the global implications of these parameterisations with a global gridded land model. This model aggregates Rd to whole-plant respiration Rp, driven with meteorological forcings spanning uncertainty across climate change models. For pre-industrial estimates, new baseline Rd increases Rp and especially in the tropics. Compared to new baseline, revised instantaneous response decreases Rp for mid-latitudes, while acclimation lowers this for the tropics with increases elsewhere. Under global warming, new Rd estimates amplify modelled respiration increases, although partially lowered by acclimation. Future measurements will refine how Rd aggregates to whole-plant respiration. Our analysis suggests Rp could be around 30% higher than existing estimates. C.H. acknowledges the NERC CEH National Capability fund. The support of the Australian Research Council to O.K.A. and P.M. (DP130101252, CE140100008, FT0991448, FT110100457) is acknowledged, as are awards DE-FG02-07ER64456 from the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research and DEB-1234162 from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Long-Term Ecological Research Program (to P.B.R.); and National Science Foundation International Polar Year Grant (to K.L.G.). L.M.M. acknowledges the support of the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) South American Biomass Burning Analysis (SAMBBA) project grant code NE/J010057/1.