Forest and woodland replacement patterns following drought-related mortality

Forest vulnerability to drought is expected to increase under anthropogenic climate change, and drought-induced mortality and community dynamics following drought have major ecological and societal impacts. Here, we show that tree mortality concomitant with drought has led to short-term (mean 5 y, range 1 to 23 y after mortality) vegetation-type conversion in multiple biomes across the world (131 sites). Self-replacement of the dominant tree species was only prevalent in 21% of the examined cases and forests and woodlands shifted to nonwoody vegetation in 10% of them. The ultimate temporal persistence of such changes remains unknown but, given the key role of biological legacies in long-term ecological succession, this emerging picture of postdrought ecological trajectories highlights the potential for major ecosystem reorganization in the coming decades. Community changes were less pronounced under wetter postmortality conditions. Replacement was also influenced by management intensity, and postdrought shrub dominance was higher when pathogens acted as codrivers of tree mortality. Early change in community composition indicates that forests dominated by mesic species generally shifted toward more xeric communities, with replacing tree and shrub species exhibiting drier bioclimatic optima and distribution ranges. However, shifts toward more mesic communities also occurred and multiple pathways of forest replacement were observed for some species. Drought characteristics, species-specific environmental preferences, plant traits, and ecosystem legacies govern post drought species turnover and subsequent ecological trajectories, with potential far-reaching implications for forest biodiversity and ecosystem services.Peer reviewe

The FLUXNET2015 dataset and the ONEFlux processing pipeline for eddy covariance data

The FLUXNET2015 dataset provides ecosystem-scale data on CO2, water, and energy exchange between the biosphere and the atmosphere, and other meteorological and biological measurements, from 212 sites around the globe (over 1500 site-years, up to and including year 2014). These sites, independently managed and operated, voluntarily contributed their data to create global datasets. Data were quality controlled and processed using uniform methods, to improve consistency and intercomparability across sites. The dataset is already being used in a number of applications, including ecophysiology studies, remote sensing studies, and development of ecosystem and Earth system models. FLUXNET2015 includes derived-data products, such as gap-filled time series, ecosystem respiration and photosynthetic uptake estimates, estimation of uncertainties, and metadata about the measurements, presented for the first time in this paper. In addition, 206 of these sites are for the first time distributed under a Creative Commons (CC-BY 4.0) license. This paper details this enhanced dataset and the processing methods, now made available as open-source codes, making the dataset more accessible, transparent, and reproducible.Peer reviewe

Avaliação de pós-graduação com método ELECTRE TRI: o caso de engenharias III da capes Postgraduate evaluation through ELECTRE TRI method: the case of III engineering area of capes

Este trabalho tem como objetivo avaliar o uso de métodos de apoio à decisão multicritério para avaliação de programas de pós-graduação. Este estudo se concentra no caso particular da área Engenharias III da CAPES, para a classificação dos programas em cinco categorias (conceitos de 1 a 5). O método ELECTRE TRI foi aplicado aos dados coletados pela CAPES no triênio 1998-2000, considerando o contexto e procedimentos adotados para a área Engenharias III. Esta avaliação visa analisar a estrutura metodológica do ELECTRE TRI na classificação dos programas de pós-graduação, no período citado, propondo uma forma alternativa de tratar o problema.<br>This work deals with the model building of multicriteria decision aid in order to evaluate the postgraduate courses in Brazil. A study case is concentrated in a particular committee of CAPES, so called the III Engineering area. These models are based on the evaluation methodology adopted by the CAPES. This methodology has the objective of making comparative analysis of the postgraduate programs of the III Engineering area during 1998-2000 term. This analysis has been conducted supported by ELECTRE TRI method, incorporating criteria utilised by the Capes in order to generate a postgraduate programmes sorting

Cross-biome synthesis of source versus sink limits to tree growth

Uncertainties surrounding tree carbon allocation to growth are a major limitation to projections of forest carbon sequestration and response to climate change. The prevalence and extent to which carbon assimilation (source) or cambial activity (sink) mediate wood production are fundamentally important and remain elusive. We quantified source-sink relations across biomes by combining eddy-covariance gross primary production with extensive on-site and regional tree ring observations. We found widespread temporal decoupling between carbon assimilation and tree growth, underpinned by contrasting climatic sensitivities of these two processes. Substantial differences in assimilation-growth decoupling between angiosperms and gymnosperms were determined, as well as stronger decoupling with canopy closure, aridity, and decreasing temperatures. Our results reveal pervasive sink control over tree growth that is likely to be increasingly prominent under global climate change

Uncovering the critical soil moisture thresholds of plant water stress for European ecosystems

Understanding the critical soil moisture (SM) threshold (θcrit ) of plant water stress and land surface energy partitioning is a basis to evaluate drought impacts and improve models for predicting future ecosystem condition and climate. Quantifying the θcrit across biomes and climates is challenging because observations of surface energy fluxes and SM remain sparse. Here, we used the latest database of eddy covariance measurements to estimate θcrit across Europe by evaluating evaporative fraction (EF)-SM relationships and investigating the covariance between vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and gross primary production (GPP) during SM dry-down periods. We found that the θcrit and soil matric potential threshold in Europe are 16.5% and -0.7 MPa, respectively. Surface energy partitioning characteristics varied among different vegetation types; EF in savannas had the highest sensitivities to SM in water-limited stage, and the lowest in forests. The sign of the covariance between daily VPD and GPP consistently changed from positive to negative during dry-down across all sites when EF shifted from relatively high to low values. This sign of the covariance changed after longer period of SM decline in forests than in grasslands and savannas. Estimated θcrit from the VPD-GPP covariance method match well with the EF-SM method, showing this covariance method can be used to detect the θcrit . We further found that soil texture dominates the spatial variability of θcrit while shortwave radiation and VPD are the major drivers in determining the spatial pattern of EF sensitivities. Our results highlight for the first time that the sign change of the covariance between daily VPD and GPP can be used as an indicator of how ecosystems transition from energy to SM limitation. We also characterized the corresponding θcrit and its drivers across diverse ecosystems in Europe, an essential variable to improve the representation of water stress in land surface models