Variation in plant traits arises from balancing the costs and benefits of resource-use strategies at the leaf level. The interplay between natural selection and environmental filtering leads to predictable patterns in traits that promote the efficiency of plant processes necessary for growth, survival, and reproduction.

In a recent publication in the journal Nature Communications, researchers explore whether trade-offs and optimality principles in leaf functional traits extend to the ecosystem level. By analyzing a comprehensive dataset from 98 global eddy covariance flux measurement sites and utilizing vegetation data collected in the field and from global plant trait databases, the authors investigate ecosystem-scale analogs to the relationships observed in functional traits.

The leaf economics spectrum, which represents consistent correlations among various leaf traits reflecting a range of plant strategies from conservative to acquisitive, is examined. Additionally, the study explores the global spectrum of plant form and function, which encompasses evolutionary strategies related to plant growth, survival, and reproduction. The researchers also investigate the least-cost hypothesis, which suggests that plants acclimate to minimize carbon costs associated with photosynthesis on a per-leaf-area basis.

The findings of this study indicate that coordination of functional properties is conserved at the ecosystem scale. However, it is important to note that additional processes occur at the ecosystem level compared to the leaf level, emphasizing the significance of scale-emergent properties in understanding and predicting ecosystem behavior. Ulisse Gomarasca from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry highlights the importance of evaluating ecosystem functional properties for the development of more realistic global dynamic vegetation models, which can reduce uncertainty in climate change projections.

The study provides strong evidence supporting the conservation of the leaf economics spectrum at the ecosystem level. Similarly, the global spectrum of plant form and function and the least-cost hypothesis are observed in whole ecosystems, despite involving secondary mechanisms at the ecosystem scale.

Prof. Josep Penuelas from CSIC-CREAF emphasizes the need for upscaling from leaf or plant to ecosystem-level processes in order to make more accurate predictions about ecosystem responses to global environmental changes. This involves considering whether the coordination observed at the leaf and plant levels is conserved at the ecosystem scale or whether scale-emergent behaviors occur and should be explicitly incorporated into models.

Publication: Gomarasca, U., Migliavacca, M., Kattge, J., Nelson., Niinemets, Ü., Wirth, C., Cescatti, A., Bahn., Nair, R., Acosta, A., Arain, A., Beloiu, M., Black, T., Bruun, H.H., Bucher, F., Buchmann, N., Carrara, A., Byun, C., Conte, A., da Silva, A., Duveiller, G., Fares, S., Ibrom, A., Knohl, A., Komac, B., Limousin, J-M., Lusk, C., Mahecha, M., Martini, D., Minden, V., Montagnani, L., Mori, A., Onoda, Y., Penuelas, J., Poschlod, P., Powell, T., Reich, P., Šigut, L., van Bodegom, P., Walther, S., Wohlfahrt, G., Wright, I., Reichstein, M. 2023. Leaf-level coordination principles propagate to the ecosystem scale. Nature Communications 14:3948. Doi: 10.1038/s41467-023-39572-5.

Current anthropogenic warming, as a result of greenhouse had emission, particularly carbon dioxide (CO₂), poses a very high risk to nature and human well-being. Up to now, this risk has been buffered by a key group of other species on the planet, terrestrial plants, which have assimilated almost a third of emissions, helping us avoid a much stronger and faster degree of warming.

In a new paper published in One Earth journal, author raises the question of how long will plants continue to rescue us. According to Prof Josep Penuelas from CSIC-CREAF, several signals suggest that this carbon-sink activity might be decreasing its efficiency and slowing its rate of increase because of limitations of nutrients, water, heat, fires, pollution, and reduced vegetation carbon residence time.

Author highlights that plant production requires many more nutrients than just C and N. Bio-elements such as phosphorus (P), potassium, calcium, magnesium, molybdenum, manganese, and zinc are needed for information and energy production and storage, functional control, catalytic power, physiological processes, and cell homeostasis, i.e., for cell structure and function, and therefore for plant growth. The availability of carbon from rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, and of nitrogen from various human-induced inputs to ecosystems, is continuously increasing. However, these increases are not paralleled by a similar increase in all these other bio-elements.

According to the study the limitations for increasing carbon sinks do not end with nutrients; many other limitations are linked to climate change itself, which raises temperatures above the optimum and drives aridification of many regions. With all these conspiring factors, we can thus expect the pace of current carbon sinks to slow because of decreased efficiency.

This scenario calls for a reconsideration of IPCC climate projections toward a possible reduction in the mitigation capacity of the terrestrial biosphere even warmer conditions than currently projected and stronger impacts. “If current models continue to ignore it, they may overestimate carbon sinks, and therefore underestimate climate warming and overestimate mitigation potential”, noted Prof. Penuelas.

Climate change is unfortunately already here and may become stronger if mitigation actions do not fully succeed, so countries should also aim to develop better adaptation strategies. Currently, adaptation strategies are largely fragmented, local, and incremental, with limited evidence of transformational adaptation and negligible evidence of risk reduction outcomes. “As we shift from a fertilization-dominated to a warming-dominated biosphere, we need to diversify our approaches and take action to healing harms already inflicted and avoid worse future ones”, concludes Prof. Penuelas.

Penuelas, J. 2023. Decreasing efficiency and slowdown of the increase in terrestrial carbon-sink activity. One Earth, Vol. 6, Issue 6p591–594 Published in issue: June 16, 2023