from the cut-it-in-half-and-count-the-rings dept.
A study [Abstract] on plants using data from over 1000 forests has found that the size and age of the plant has more of an impact on their productivity than temperature and precipitation.
"A fundamental assumption of our models for understanding how climate influences the functioning of ecosystems is that temperature and precipitation directly influence how fast plants can take up and use carbon dioxide," said Enquist, a professor in the UA's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology whose research lab led the study.
"Essentially, warm and wet environments are thought to allow plant metabolism to run fast, while cold and drier environments slow down metabolism and hence lower biomass production in ecosystems," he said. "This assumption makes sense, as we know from countless experiments that temperature and water control how fast plants can grow. However, when applied to a the scale of entire ecosystems, this assumption appears to not be correct."
To test the assumption on the scale of ecosystems, the team developed a new mathematical theory that assesses the relative importance of several hypothesized drivers of net primary productivity. That theory was then evaluated using a massive new dataset assembled from more than 1,000 different forest locations across the world.
The analysis revealed a new and general mathematical relationship that governs worldwide variation in terrestrial ecosystem net primary productivity. The team found that plant size and plant age control most of the variation in plant productivity, not temperature and precipitation as traditionally thought.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 04 2014, @05:20AM
Repeat steps 6-7 for more years to get some plots
Final step: for the fuck sake, publish TFA in an Open Access Journal - it's not like that there aren't any.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @07:32AM
> Final step: for the fuck sake, publish TFA in an Open Access Journal - it's not like that there aren't any.
It is on ResearchGate. [researchgate.net]
Direct PDF link here. [researchgate.net]
Pro Tip: To find alternate sources of papers, google unique phrases from the abstract.
(Score: 3, Informative) by lubricus on Monday August 04 2014, @05:39AM
Didn't read TFA because the there's no link to the real article.
From what I can surmise, this study used a model of worldwide net primary productivity. This is output of all the plants in the world.
The problem is, the ones we really care about are crops, usually annual grains, which, being the same size and age while setting grain, have already been bred by farmers over hundreds of years.
In this case, climate will have a strong effect on output.
... sorry about the typos
(Score: 2) by tathra on Monday August 04 2014, @06:51AM
glancing, i see that it says it'll be posted online in Nature, but Nature apparently didnt do an article on it. they do have links to many other sites' articles on it, including the one posted, and the absract of the study itself (unless you pay Nature for access).
here you go. [nature.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by frojack on Monday August 04 2014, @07:18AM
40 years ago, as a college intern with the forest service, we had already done the studies to determine when the optimum time to cut for fiber content, (not lumber). It was known then that the first X years of a woody plant's growth were way more productive than the next X. X varied by species, but not as much by climate.
Still you would always first choose a species suited to the client.
With grains, you've got one season. And that season will shorten or lengthen with climate change.
And there are at least a hundred different varieties of wheat, each tuned to the climate where they are grown.
Same for corn, potatoes, and just about every other staple in our diet.
Your description seems to suggest we have exactly one kind of grain and it took us 100 years to breed it.
Exactly the opposite it true. We've got hundreds of varieties, and it really only takes 5 to 12 years to custom breed a grain for most climate these days.
And just like with trees, farmers will choose the seed stock best suited to the climate at hand.
This is already happening. Farmers switch seed stock all the time.
Maybe the Canadians will start planting seed stock designed for Arkansas or Texas. Maybe Chinese wheat will fare better on the more northern Russian steppes.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by hendrikboom on Monday August 04 2014, @03:08PM
Could it be that plant size and age is influenced by temperature and precipitation?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04 2014, @08:34PM
The mention of these things brings to mind the botanist who destroyed one of the oldest living organisms on the planet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prometheus_(tree)#The_cutting_of_the_tree [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_trees#Individual_trees_with_verified_ages [wikipedia.org]
-- gewg_