{"title":"Plant height as an indicator for alpine carbon sequestration and ecosystem response to warming","authors":"Quan Quan, Nianpeng He, Ruiyang Zhang, Jinsong Wang, Yiqi Luo, Fangfang Ma, Junxiao Pan, Ruomeng Wang, Congcong Liu, Jiahui Zhang, Yiheng Wang, Bing Song, Zhaolei Li, Qingping Zhou, Guirui Yu, Shuli Niu","doi":"10.1038/s41477-024-01705-z","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Growing evidence indicates that plant community structure and traits have changed under climate warming, especially in cold or high-elevation regions. However, the impact of these warming-induced changes on ecosystem carbon sequestration remains unclear. Using a warming experiment on the high-elevation Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, we found that warming not only increased plant species height but also altered species composition, collectively resulting in a taller plant community associated with increased net ecosystem productivity (NEP). Along a 1,500 km transect on the Plateau, taller plant community promoted NEP and soil carbon through associated chlorophyll content and other photosynthetic traits at the community level. Overall, plant community height as a dominant trait is associated with species composition and regulates ecosystem C sequestration in the high-elevation biome. This trait-based association provides new insights into predicting the direction, magnitude and sensitivity of ecosystem C fluxes in response to climate warming. Quan et al. show that warming-induced changes in plant community height in a cold, high-elevation region enhance ecosystem carbon sequestration, emphasizing the importance of plant traits in shaping the carbon cycle under climate change.","PeriodicalId":18904,"journal":{"name":"Nature Plants","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":15.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-05-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-024-01705-z.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nature Plants","FirstCategoryId":"99","ListUrlMain":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-024-01705-z","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"生物学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PLANT SCIENCES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Growing evidence indicates that plant community structure and traits have changed under climate warming, especially in cold or high-elevation regions. However, the impact of these warming-induced changes on ecosystem carbon sequestration remains unclear. Using a warming experiment on the high-elevation Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, we found that warming not only increased plant species height but also altered species composition, collectively resulting in a taller plant community associated with increased net ecosystem productivity (NEP). Along a 1,500 km transect on the Plateau, taller plant community promoted NEP and soil carbon through associated chlorophyll content and other photosynthetic traits at the community level. Overall, plant community height as a dominant trait is associated with species composition and regulates ecosystem C sequestration in the high-elevation biome. This trait-based association provides new insights into predicting the direction, magnitude and sensitivity of ecosystem C fluxes in response to climate warming. Quan et al. show that warming-induced changes in plant community height in a cold, high-elevation region enhance ecosystem carbon sequestration, emphasizing the importance of plant traits in shaping the carbon cycle under climate change.
期刊介绍:
Nature Plants is an online-only, monthly journal publishing the best research on plants — from their evolution, development, metabolism and environmental interactions to their societal significance.