A global database of plant production and carbon exchange from global change manipulative experiments

Song, Jian; Ru, Jingyi; Zheng, Mengmei; Wang, Haidao; Fan, Yongzhe; Yue, Xiaojing; Yu, Kejia; Zhou, Zhenxing; Shao, Ping; Han, Hairong; Lei, Liandi; Zhang, Qian; Li, Xiaoming; Su, Fanglong; Zhang, Kesheng; Wan, Shiqiang

doi:10.1038/s41597-020-00661-5

Cited by 6 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…When biomass or soil data were not reported, studies were excluded. We also included the data on litter production reported by Song and Wan 45 to study the interactions with aboveground biomass and production data.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A trade-off between plant and soil carbon storage under elevated CO2

Terrer

Phillips

Hungate

et al. 2021

Nature

361

221

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Terrestrial ecosystems remove about 30% of the CO 2 emitted by human activities each year 1 , yet the persistence of this carbon sink partly depends on how plant biomass and soil carbon stocks respond to future increases in atmospheric CO 2 2,3 . While plant biomass often increases in elevated CO 2 (eCO 2 ) experiments 4-6 , soil carbon has been observed to increase, remain unchanged, or even decline 7 . The mechanisms driving this variation across experiments remain poorly understood, creating uncertainty in climate projections 8,9 . Here, we synthesized data from 108 eCO 2 experiments and found that the effect of eCO 2 on soil carbon stocks is best explained by a negative relationship with plant biomass: when plant biomass is strongly stimulated by eCO 2 , soil carbon accrual declines; conversely, when biomass is weakly stimulated, soil carbon accumulates. This trade-off appears related to plant nutrient acquisition, whereby enhanced biomass requires mining the soil for nutrients, which decreases soil carbon accrual. We found an increase in soil carbon stocks with eCO 2 in grasslands (8±2%) and no increase in forests (0±2%), even though plant biomass in grassland responded less strongly (9±3%) than in forest (23±2%). Ecosystem models do not reproduce this trade-off, which implies that projections of soil carbon may need to be revised.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A trade-off between plant and soil carbon storage under elevated CO2

Terrer

Phillips

Hungate

et al. 2021

Nature

361

221

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“…The Hebei University database presents C stock and flux responses to single and combined eCO2, warming, N and N + P addition, drought, and irrigation. Data originate from 445 publications on outdoor experiments at 350 sites and were collected from the Web of Science up to December 13, 2016 for the initial version, plus websites of experimental networks and ecological laboratories (Song et al, 2019, 2020). Cropland and indoor studies were excluded from this database.…”

Section: Description and Comparison Of The Four Constituent Databasesmentioning

confidence: 99%

When things get MESI: The Manipulation Experiments Synthesis Initiative—A coordinated effort to synthesize terrestrial global change experiments

Sundert

Leuzinger

Bader

et al. 2023

Global Change Biology

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Responses of the terrestrial biosphere to rapidly changing environmental conditions are a major source of uncertainty in climate projections. In an effort to reduce this uncertainty, a wide range of global change experiments have been conducted that mimic future conditions in terrestrial ecosystems, manipulating CO2, temperature, and nutrient and water availability. Syntheses of results across experiments provide a more general sense of ecosystem responses to global change, and help to discern the influence of background conditions such as climate and vegetation type in determining global change responses. Several independent syntheses of published data have yielded distinct databases for specific objectives. Such parallel, uncoordinated initiatives carry the risk of producing redundant data collection efforts and have led to contrasting outcomes without clarifying the underlying reason for divergence. These problems could be avoided by creating a publicly available, updatable, curated database. Here, we report on a global effort to collect and curate 57,089 treatment responses across 3644 manipulation experiments at 1145 sites, simulating elevated CO2, warming, nutrient addition, and precipitation changes. In the resulting Manipulation Experiments Synthesis Initiative (MESI) database, effects of experimental global change drivers on carbon and nutrient cycles are included, as well as ancillary data such as background climate, vegetation type, treatment magnitude, duration, and, unique to our database, measured soil properties. Our analysis of the database indicates that most experiments are short term (one or few growing seasons), conducted in the USA, Europe, or China, and that the most abundantly reported variable is aboveground biomass. We provide the most comprehensive multifactor global change database to date, enabling the research community to tackle open research questions, vital to global policymaking. The MESI database, freely accessible at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7153253, opens new avenues for model evaluation and synthesis‐based understanding of how global change affects terrestrial biomes. We welcome contributions to the database on GitHub.

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