2023-09-05 17:12:46
Norwegian fjord – PEXELS
MADRID, 5 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) –
researchers of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found evidence of widespread thermal optimization of ecosystem respiration, in response to global warming.
Terrestrial ecosystems ‘breathe’ between 120 and 130 gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere each year. Ecosystem respiration is the sum of all respiration of living organisms in a specific ecosystem. The two main processes that contribute to the respiration of ecosystems are photosynthesis and cellular respiration. Photosynthesis uses carbon dioxide and water, in the presence of sunlight, to produce glucose and oxygen, while cellular respiration uses glucose and oxygen to produce carbon dioxide, water, and energy.
Professor Niu Shuli’s lab at the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research found that ecosystem respiration shows a non-monotonic response to temperature, with respiration peaking at optimum temperature. and then decreasing with increasing temperature. The investigation also determined that the optimal respiration temperature of the ecosystem it is closely correlated with the annual maximum daily temperature on a global scale.
This work was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
Understanding of the ecosystem respiration (RE) temperature response remains limited because ER is a sum of complex autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration processes affected by many confounding factors.
Under the supervision of Professor Niu, co-author Chen Weinan analyzed ER temperature response curves at 212 FLUXNET sites: a global network of micrometeorological tower sites.
They found that the optimal temperature of ER it existed in 183 sites widely distributed in different biomes around the world.
In addition, the ER optimum temperature also increased linearly with annual daily maximum temperature (Tmax) at all sites and vegetation types, suggesting thermal adaptation.
This study provides the first evidence for the widespread existence of ER thermal optima and their adaptation with Tmax in different biomes around the world, advancing the traditional understanding about ER temperature response functions. The widespread existence of ER thermal optima implies that the respiration rates of terrestrial ecosystems they may decrease rather than continue to increase at high temperatures.
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