The global distribution of the optimum air temperature for ecosystem-level gross primary productivity (Topteco) is poorly understood, despite its importance for ecosystem carbon uptake under future warming. We provide empirical evidence for the existence of such an optimum, using measurements of in situ eddy covariance and satellite-derived proxies, and report its global distribution. Topteco is consistently lower than the physiological optimum temperature of leaf-level photosynthetic capacity, which typically exceeds 30 °C. The global average Topteco is estimated to be 23±6 ºC, with warmer regions having higher Topteco values than colder regions. In tropical forests, particularly, Topteco is close to growing-season air temperature and is projected to fall below it under all scenarios of future climate, suggesting a limited safe operating space for these ecosystems under future warming.

Earth system models project that the tropical land carbon sink will decrease in size in response to an increase in warming and drought during this century, probably causing a positive climate feedback. But available data are too limited at present to test the predicted changes in the tropical carbon balance in response to climate change. Long-term atmospheric carbon dioxide data provide a global record that integrates the interannual variability of the global carbon balance. Multiple lines of evidence demonstrate that most of this variability originates in the terrestrial biosphere. In particular, the year-to-year variations in the atmospheric carbon dioxide growth rate (CGR) are thought to be the result of fluctuations in the carbon fluxes of tropical land areas. Recently, the response of CGR to tropical climate interannual variability was used to put a constraint on the sensitivity of tropical land carbon to climate change. Here we use the long-term CGR record from Mauna Loa and the South Pole to show that the sensitivity of CGR to tropical temperature interannual variability has increased by a factor of 1.9 ± 0.3 in the past five decades. We find that this sensitivity was greater when tropical land regions experienced drier conditions. This suggests that the sensitivity of CGR to interannual temperature variations is regulated by moisture conditions, even though the direct correlation between CGR and tropical precipitation is weak. We also find that present terrestrial carbon cycle models do not capture the observed enhancement in CGR sensitivity in the past five decades. More realistic model predictions of future carbon cycle and climate feedbacks require a better understanding of the processes driving the response of tropical ecosystems to drought and warming.

The change in spring phenology is recognized to exert a major influence on carbon balance dynamics in temperate ecosystems. Over the past several decades, several studies focused on shifts in spring phenology; however, large uncertainties still exist, and one understudied source could be the method implemented in retrieving satellite-derived spring phenology. To account for this potential uncertainty, we conducted a multimethod investigation to quantify changes in vegetation green-up date from 1982 to 2010 over temperate China, and to characterize climatic controls on spring phenology. Over temperate China, the five methods estimated that the vegetation green-up onset date advanced, on average, at a rate of 1.3 ± 0.6 days per decade (ranging from 0.4 to 1.9 days per decade) over the last 29 years. Moreover, the sign of the trends in vegetation green-up date derived from the five methods were broadly consistent spatially and for different vegetation types, but with large differences in the magnitude of the trend. The large intermethod variance was notably observed in arid and semiarid vegetation types. Our results also showed that change in vegetation green-up date is more closely correlated with temperature than with precipitation. However, the temperature sensitivity of spring vegetation green-up date became higher as precipitation increased, implying that precipitation is an important regulator of the response of vegetation spring phenology to change in temperature. This intricate linkage between spring phenology and precipitation must be taken into account in current phenological models which are mostly driven by temperature.

A quantitative genetic model relates the genotypic value of an individual to the alleles at the loci that contribute to the variation in a population in terms of additive, dominance, and epistatic effects. This partition of genetic effects is related to the partition of genetic variance. A number of models have been proposed to describe this relationship: some are based on the orthogonal partition of genetic variance in an equilibrium population. We compare a few representative models and discuss their utility and potential problems for analyzing quantitative trait loci (QTL) in a segregating population. An orthogonal model implies that estimates of the genetic effects are consistent in a full or reduced model in an equilibrium population and are directly related to the partition of the genetic variance in the population. are many ways to define a QTL model, thus additive, A similar argument has been made for epistasis (Chevdominance, and epistatic effects. The models compared erud and Routman 1995). On the one hand, we have by Van Der Veen (1959) are all based on genotypic the model proposed by Hayman and Mather (1955) values only, so to speak. and discussed in length in Mather and Jinks (1982),The purpose of modeling QTL, of course, is to provide a way to summarize and interpret the differences between the genotypic values and also the genetic varia-1

While climate warming reduces the occurrence of frost events, the warming-induced lengthening of the growing season of plants in the Northern Hemisphere may actually induce more frequent frost days during the growing season (GSFDs, days with minimum temperature < 0 °C). Direct evidence of this hypothesis, however, is limited. Here we investigate the change in the number of GSFDs at latitudes greater than 30° N using remotely-sensed and in situ phenological records and three minimum temperature ( T min ) data sets from 1982 to 2012. While decreased GSFDs are found in northern Siberia, the Tibetan Plateau, and northwestern North America (mainly in autumn), ~43% of the hemisphere, especially in Europe, experienced a significant increase in GSFDs between 1982 and 2012 (mainly during spring). Overall, regions with larger increases in growing season length exhibit larger increases in GSFDs. Climate warming thus reduces the total number of frost days per year, but GSFDs nonetheless increase in many areas.

Changes in agricultural practices are considered a possible option to mitigate climate change. In particular, reducing or suppressing tillage (no-till) may have the potential to sequester carbon in soils, which could help slow global warming. On the other hand, such practices also have a direct effect on regional climate by altering the physical properties of the land surface. These biogeophysical effects, however, are still poorly known. Here we show that no-till management increases the surface albedo of croplands in summer and that the resulting cooling effect is amplified during hot extremes, thus attenuating peak temperatures reached during heat waves. Using a regional climate model accounting for the observed effects of no-till farming on surface albedo, as well as possible reductions in soil evaporation, we investigate the potential consequences of a full conversion to no-till agriculture in Europe. We find that the summer cooling from cropland albedo increase is strongly amplified during hot summer days, when surface albedo has more impact on the Earth's radiative balance due to clear-sky conditions. The reduced evaporation associated with the crop residue cover tends to counteract the albedo-induced cooling, but during hot days the albedo effect is the dominating factor. For heatwave summer days the local cooling effect gained from no-till practice is of the order of 2°C. The identified asymmetric impact of surface albedo change on summer temperature opens new avenues for climateengineering measures targeting high-impact events rather than mean climate properties.

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