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Sensitivity of grassland productivity to aridity controlled by stomatal and xylem regulation

Nature Geoscience volume 10, pages 284–288 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

The terrestrial water and carbon cycles are coupled through plant regulation of stomatal closure. Both soil moisture and vapour pressure deficit—the amount of moisture in the air relative to its potential maximum—can govern stomatal closure, which reduces plant carbon uptake. However, plants vary in the degree to which they regulate their stomata—and in association, xylem conductance—in response to increasing aridity: isohydric plants exert tight regulation of stomata and the water content of the plant, whereas anisohydric plants do not. Here we use remote-sensing data sets of anisohydricity and vegetation greenness to show that productivity in United States grasslands—especially anisohydric ones—is far more sensitive to variations in vapour pressure deficit than to variations in precipitation. Anisohydric ecosystem productivity is over three times more sensitive to vapour pressure deficit than isohydric ecosystem productivity. The precipitation sensitivity of summer productivity increases with anisohydricity only for the most anisohydric ecosystems. We conclude that increases in vapour pressure deficit rather than changes in precipitation—both of which are expected impacts of climate change—will be a dominant influence on future grassland productivity.

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Figure 1: Spatial patterns of vegetation and climatic conditions averaged between 1981 and 2013.
Figure 2: Joint probability density function between NDVI and solar-induced fluorescence (SIF) (proportional to productivity).
Figure 3: Variations of standardized sensitivity to aridity with anisohydricity.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to J. Joiner for providing the GOME-2 SIF data and for helpful comments, and to the providers of the other data sets used in this study. A.P.W. was funded by Columbia University’s Center for Climate and Life. P.G. was supported by a DOE Early Career Award and an NSF CAREER grant.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    A. G. Konings & P. Gentine

  2. Department of Earth System Science, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA

    A. G. Konings

  3. Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, Palisades, New York 10964, USA

    A. P. Williams

  4. Earth Institute, Columbia University, New York, New York 10027, USA

    P. Gentine

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  1. A. G. Konings
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Contributions

A.G.K., A.P.W. and P.G. conceived and designed the study. A.G.K. and A.P.W. processed data and A.G.K. performed the data analysis. All authors contributed to interpreting the analysis. A.G.K. wrote the first draft of the manuscript, and all authors edited the manuscript.

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Correspondence to A. G. Konings.

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Konings, A., Williams, A. & Gentine, P. Sensitivity of grassland productivity to aridity controlled by stomatal and xylem regulation. Nature Geosci 10, 284–288 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2903

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