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Ecology

Ecosystem responses to climate extremes

Nature volume 527, pages 315–316 (2015)Cite this article

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Extreme drought or wet conditions have now been found to strongly influence the vegetative development of ecosystems. Semi-arid regions are most affected — raising concerns about their vulnerability to long-term drought in the future.

Extreme climatic conditions such as drought or heatwaves are likely to intensify in the next few decades1. Long-term observations2 of past decades suggest that characteristic recurrence frequencies, intensities and durations of certain extreme events have already increased noticeably. One pressing question is whether key ecosystem services, such as the capacity of ecosystems to accumulate carbon, are affected by extreme events3. The potential of ecosystems to accumulate carbon is intimately related to the phenology of vegetation4 — essentially, all the characteristic periodicities in an organism's life, such as the annual cycles of plant leaf development. Writing in the Journal of Geophysical Research, Ma et al.5 describe how climate extremes modify the seasonal vegetation development of different ecosystems.

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Figure 1: Hummock grassland during dry and wet growth seasons.

James Cleverly

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References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Anja Rammig is at the TUM School of Life Sciences Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München, 85354 Freising, Germany.,

    Anja Rammig

  2. Miguel D. Mahecha is at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, 07745 Jena, Germany.,

    Miguel D. Mahecha

Authors
  1. Anja Rammig
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  2. Miguel D. Mahecha
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Anja Rammig or Miguel D. Mahecha.

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Phenology: Spring greening in a warming world

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Rammig, A., Mahecha, M. Ecosystem responses to climate extremes. Nature 527, 315–316 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/527315a

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