An international research group led by Bev Law, a researcher from Oregon State University, discovers three variables that determine the health of an earth’s ecosystem. Variables include the ability of vegetation to absorb carbon and its efficiency in using carbon and water.
The study is important because scientists and policy makers need a simpler, faster and cheaper way to quantify how the ecosystems on which humans depend are responding to climate and environmental change, also covering the effects caused by people.
The study was published in the journal Nature.
We used this complex, continuous data to develop equations that can be applied with fewer measurements to monitor forest response to climate and other factors..
Bev Law, Emeritus Professor and Researcher, College of Forestry, Oregon State University
The research team led by the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, used mathematical models, satellite observations and multiple streams of environmental data to quantify the combined action of the three factors to represent more than 70% of total ecosystem function.
On the other hand, high carbon uptake, carbon use efficiency and water use efficiency imply that at least 70% of all aspects that the ecosystem is supposed to perform are executed ideally.
Earth’s surface ecosystems support multiple functions and services that are essential to society. These functions and services include biomass production, plant efficiency in using sunlight and water, water retention, climate regulation and ultimately food security. Tracking these key indicators helps describe ecosystem function in a way that summarizes its ability to adapt, survive, and thrive as the climate and environment change..
Bev Law, Emeritus Professor and Researcher, College of Forestry, Oregon State University
Carbon and water use efficiency is correlated with climate and aridity. This fact leads scientists to assert that climate change will significantly influence the formation of ecosystem function in the coming years.
Core elements of the current research include data from five semi-arid Ponderosa Pine sites where Law has researched over the past 25 years.
These sites are part of the AmeriFlux Network, a collection of locations in North, South and Central America, which are managed by principal researchers, like Law, who quantifies ecosystem carbon dioxide, “fluxes” of water and energy or exchanges in the atmosphere.
AmeriFlux is part of the international FLUXNET project, and data from 203 FLUXNET sites represent a variety of climatic zones and vegetation types that were analyzed for the study.
According to Law, who has been involved in forest health research for decades, reporting on the health of an ecosystem has long posed challenges, given the complexity of ecosystem structure and how it responds to environmental changes.
In the 1980s, I was working on developing indicators that included similar carbon use efficiency, and many measures were incorporated into Forest Service forest health monitoring plots. The new flux paper shows how continuous data can be used to develop algorithms for application in monitoring the condition of forests, and to assess and improve ecosystem models that are used to estimate the effects of climate on the carbon uptake by ecosystems and water use..
Bev Law, Emeritus Professor and Researcher, College of Forestry, Oregon State University
The water use indicator is a combination of measures related to the water use efficiency of an ecosystem, which refers to the uptake of carbon by the amount of water transpired by the plants through their leaves. The carbon use efficiency indicator is a comparison of carbon respired and carbon absorbed. Plant respiration involves the conversion of sugar into energy during photosynthesis.
Mirco Migliavacca, the study’s lead author and researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry concluded:Using three major factors, we can explain almost 72% of the variability within ecosystem functions.”
According to Law, the three functional indicators were largely based on vegetation structure, such as leaf nitrogen content, greenness, vegetation height, and biomass. This highlights the importance of ecosystem structure, which can be altered by disturbances such as fire and also by forest management practices.
Journal reference:
Migliavaca, M., et al. (2021) The three main axes of the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. Nature. doi.org/10.1038/s41586-021-03939-9.
Source: https://oregonstate.edu/
