Access
This article is part of Nature's premium content.
Published online 29 July 2009 | Nature 460, 559 (2009) | doi:10.1038/460559b
News
Forest growth studies begin to turn up the heat
Researchers aim to assess the effects of rising air temperature.
Across the United States, researchers are firing up experiments to determine how rising temperatures could reshape the nation's forests.
The studies encompass the pines and maples of eastern forests in Massachusetts and North Carolina, the spruce and fir of northern Minnesota, and the alpine tundra ecosystem above the treeline in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.
To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see right).
Comments
Reader comments are usually moderated after posting. If you find something offensive or inappropriate, you can speed this process by clicking 'Report this comment' (or, if that doesn't work for you, email webadmin@nature.com). For more controversial topics, we reserve the right to moderate before comments are published.
Effect of rising temperature on forests
Firstly, I must heartily compliment the ecologists trying to understand the early signs of global warming effects on forests functioning by warming up the forests soil and canopy by different means. Certainly, it is a step ahead from the climate chamber experiments but needs patient for realistic response. These experiments may not represent the real response of forest ecosystems that may occur as a result of climate change because of following reasons: a) immediate increase of 2-4 °C of temperature to the forest ecosystems would be high that will not resemble the increase of temperature in global warming, b) forests have strong buffering capacity to cope with the small changes in abiotic factors for short period of time and the degree of buffer vary among the species and the ecosystem. So, such experiments would provide more meaningful results if carried out in large areas for longer period of time (at least a decade) with smaller annual increase in temperature (ca. 0.2-0.4 °C). Our results of N and P input effects on natural tropical dry deciduous forest and derived ecosystems in India for more than decades showed that the derived ecosystems like savannas responding more rapidly to nutrient inputs than forests but the responses are retained for a longer time in forest than savannas. Contrary to general believe, N was more responsive for causing changes in species composition and functional traits than P. These changes were categorised into sensitive, moderate and resistant with respect to various soil and species parameters in different ecosystems. Likewise, changes are expected after temperature rise or may be more dramatic and valuable if the measurements are taken in large areas for longer time with slow annual increase in temperature.
S. K. Tripathi is Reader in Department of Forestry, Mizoram University
Aizawl-796009, India
Emails: sk_tripathi@rediffmail.com; sktripathi_13@yahoo.com