1. |
- Braakhekke, Maarten C., et al.
(author)
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Nitrogen leaching from natural ecosystems under global change : A modelling study
- 2017
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In: Earth System Dynamics. - : Copernicus GmbH. - 2190-4979 .- 2190-4987. ; 8:4, s. 1121-1139
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- To study global nitrogen (N) leaching from natural ecosystems under changing N deposition, climate, and atmospheric CO2, we performed a factorial model experiment for the period 1901-2006 with the N-enabled global terrestrial ecosystem model LPJ-GUESS (Lund-Potsdam-Jena General Ecosystem Simulator). In eight global simulations, we used either the true transient time series of N deposition, climate, and atmospheric CO2 as input or kept combinations of these drivers constant at initial values. The results show that N deposition is globally the strongest driver of simulated N leaching, individually causing an increase of 88% by 1997-2006 relative to pre-industrial conditions. Climate change led globally to a 31%increase in N leaching, but the size and direction of change varied among global regions: Leaching generally increased in regions with high soil organic carbon storage and high initial N status, and decreased in regions with a positive trend in vegetation productivity or decreasing precipitation. Rising atmospheric CO2 generally caused decreased N leaching (33% globally), with strongest effects in regions with high productivity and N availability. All drivers combined resulted in a rise of N leaching by 73% with strongest increases in Europe, eastern North America and South-East Asia, where N deposition rates are highest. Decreases in N leaching were predicted for the Amazon and northern India. We further found that N loss by fire regionally is a large term in the N budget, associated with lower N leaching, particularly in semi-arid biomes. Predicted global N leaching from natural lands rose from 13.6 TgNyr-1 in 1901-1911 to 18.5 TgNyr-1 in 1997-2006, accounting for reductions of natural land cover. Ecosystem N status (quantified as the reduction of vegetation productivity due to N limitation) shows a similar positive temporal trend but large spatial variability. Interestingly, this variability is more strongly related to vegetation type than N input. Similarly, the relationship between N status and (relative) N leaching is highly variable due to confounding factors such as soil water fluxes, fire occurrence, and growing season length. Nevertheless, our results suggest that regions with very high N deposition rates are approaching a state of N saturation.
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2. |
- Franklin, Oskar, et al.
(author)
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Organizing principles for vegetation dynamics
- 2020
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In: Nature plants. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2055-026X .- 2055-0278. ; 6:5, s. 444-453
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Plants and vegetation play a critical-but largely unpredictable-role in global environmental changes due to the multitude of contributing processes at widely different spatial and temporal scales. In this Perspective, we explore approaches to master this complexity and improve our ability to predict vegetation dynamics by explicitly taking account of principles that constrain plant and ecosystem behaviour: natural selection, self-organization and entropy maximization. These ideas are increasingly being used in vegetation models, but we argue that their full potential has yet to be realized. We demonstrate the power of natural selection-based optimality principles to predict photosynthetic and carbon allocation responses to multiple environmental drivers, as well as how individual plasticity leads to the predictable self-organization of forest canopies. We show how models of natural selection acting on a few key traits can generate realistic plant communities and how entropy maximization can identify the most probable outcomes of community dynamics in space- and time-varying environments. Finally, we present a roadmap indicating how these principles could be combined in a new generation of models with stronger theoretical foundations and an improved capacity to predict complex vegetation responses to environmental change. Integrating natural selection and other organizing principles into next-generation vegetation models could render them more theoretically sound and useful for earth system applications and modelling climate impacts.
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3. |
- Harrison, Sandy P., et al.
(author)
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Eco-evolutionary optimality as a means to improve vegetation and land-surface models
- 2021
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In: New Phytologist. - : Wiley. - 0028-646X .- 1469-8137. ; 231:6, s. 2125-2141
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Research review (peer-reviewed)abstract
- Global vegetation and land-surface models embody interdisciplinary scientific understanding of the behaviour of plants and ecosystems, and are indispensable to project the impacts of environmental change on vegetation and the interactions between vegetation and climate. However, systematic errors and persistently large differences among carbon and water cycle projections by different models highlight the limitations of current process formulations. In this review, focusing on core plant functions in the terrestrial carbon and water cycles, we show how unifying hypotheses derived from eco-evolutionary optimality (EEO) principles can provide novel, parameter-sparse representations of plant and vegetation processes. We present case studies that demonstrate how EEO generates parsimonious representations of core, leaf-level processes that are individually testable and supported by evidence. EEO approaches to photosynthesis and primary production, dark respiration and stomatal behaviour are ripe for implementation in global models. EEO approaches to other important traits, including the leaf economics spectrum and applications of EEO at the community level are active research areas. Independently tested modules emerging from EEO studies could profitably be integrated into modelling frameworks that account for the multiple time scales on which plants and plant communities adjust to environmental change.
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4. |
- Mangnus, Astrid C., et al.
(author)
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Envisioning alternatives in pre-structured urban sustainability transformations: Too late to change the future?
- 2022
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In: Cities. - : Elsevier BV. - 0264-2751. ; 120
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- In the governance of urban sustainability transformations, participatory futures practices are increasingly popular. Yet there is a rising awareness that the success or failure of these practices depends on how they are staged and the context in which they are conducted. These contextual factors are often less than ideal, and futures practices take place at the crossroads of many pre-determined agendas and priorities. We distinguish four factors that shape the effects of participatory futures practices: 1) how the institutional landscape constrains or enables a project aimed at urban sustainability transformations; 2) the participatory culture surrounding the project; 3) the project design; and 4) the futures methods applied. We assess these factors in three cities within the European H2020 IRIS Smart Cities project. In each city, project members participated in sessions where they designed citizen engagement using a futures methodology: the novel Scope and Ladder models. Each city reflects a different combination of the four contextual factors. We find that space for exploration and re-imagining can be found and optimized under imperfect conditions. Drawing on the results of the three cases, we conclude with a set of recommendations for the funders, project members and futures organizers of urban sustainability transformation projects.
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