Soil carbon cycling: Warming slows the rot

It is predicted that climate warming will be accelerated by increased release of greenhouse gases from terrestrial ecosystems at higher temperatures. This positive feedback has been integrated into the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, giving increased estimates of future warming. This assumption has now been tested in a tallgrass prairie ecosystem in the US Great Plains. Soil respiration is found to become less sensitive to temperature change as temperatures rise. This may provide a short-term buffer against further warming.

Acclimatization of soil respiration to warming in a tall grass prairie
YIQI LUO, SHIQIANG WAN, DAFENG HUI & LINDA L. WALLACE
Nature 413, 622-625 (11 October 2001)
| First Paragraph | Full Text | PDF (200 K) | Supplementary Information |

Global change: Matter of time on the prairie
LINDSEY RUSTAD
In some ecosystems at least, extrapolating from the short-term effects of global warming will give a misleading impression of the reaction over longer periods of time.
Nature 413, 578-579 (11 October 2001)
| Full Text | PDF (74 K) |

Little heat on the prairie

11 October 2001 table of contents