Spatial and temporal scale-dependent feedbacks govern dynamics of biocrusts in drylands.

Biota could be ecosystem engineers in generating an intrinsic heterogeneous landscape through scale-dependent feedbacks. Thereby, they can form resource-enriched patchiness or islands of fertility, comprising self-organizing spatial patterns. Research so far has largely focused on the self-organized spatial patterns of plant communities in drylands.

Pervasive but biome-dependent relationship between fragmentation and resilience in forests.

The relationship between landscape fragmentation and vegetation resilience is uncertain. Here we use multiple satellite-based tree cover data and vegetation indices to quantify the apparent effects of fragmentation on global forest resilience and potential mechanisms thereof. We measure fragmentation as edge density, patch density and mean patch area of tree cover patches, and measure resilience as one-lag temporal autocorrelation of vegetation indices.

Global variation in vegetation carbon use efficiency inferred from eddy covariance observations.

Terrestrial ecosystems have been serving as a strong carbon sink that offsets one-quarter of anthropogenic CO emissions. Carbon use efficiency (CUE), the percentage of photosynthesized carbon that is available for biomass production and other secondary carbon products, is one factor determining the carbon sink size. The global variation in CUE remains unclear, however, as recent reports disagree over the responses of CUE to temperature, dryness, forest types and stand age, and there are limited direct observations to constrain the related uncertainty.

Contrasting responses of flowering phenology in C and C plants shape grassland community structure under global change.

Climate change is known to affect plant phenology. Yet, the sensitivity of flowering phenology in dryland regions to climate change, and the potential implications for community composition, remain largely unexplored. Here, we used an 18-year field experiment to investigate the effects of climate warming and nitrogen addition on flowering phenology of four C plant species and two C plant species, and the cascading effects on the relative abundance of C and C plants in a desert steppe.

Plant use of water across soil depths regulates species dominance under nitrogen addition.

The primary mechanism driving plant species loss after nitrogen (N) addition has been often hypothesized to be asymmetric competition for light, resulting from increased aboveground biomass. However, it is largely unknown whether plants' access to soil water at different depths would affect their responses, fate, and community composition under nitrogen addition. In a semiarid grassland exposed to 8-years of N addition, we measured plant aboveground biomass and diversity under four nitrogen addition rates (0, 4, 10, and 16 g m year), and evaluated plant use of water across the soil profile using oxygen isotope.

Nonlinear microbial thermal response and its implications for abrupt soil organic carbon responses to warming.

Microbial carbon use efficiency (CUE) is a key microbial trait affecting soil organic carbon (SOC) dynamics. However, we lack a unified and predictive understanding of the mechanisms underpinning the temperature response of microbial CUE, and, thus, its impacts on SOC storage in a warming world. Here, we leverage three independent soil datasets (n = 618 for microbial CUE; n = 591 and 660 for heterotrophic respiration) at broad spatial scales to investigate the microbial thermal response and its implications for SOC responses to warming.

Stomatal-based immunity differentiation across vascular plant lineages.

Some plants are known to actively close their stomata in the presence of foliar pathogens, inhibiting pathogen entry into leaves, leading to 'stoma-based immunity' as the first line of defense. However, the variation in stoma-based innate immunity across the diversity of vascular plants remains unclear. Here, we investigated the stomatal response and guard cell signaling pathway in various seed plant, fern, and lycophyte species when exposed to the bacterial pathogens or pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs).

Drought-Induced Weakening of Temperature Control on Ecosystem Carbon Uptake Across Northern Lands.

Rapid warming in northern lands has led to increased ecosystem carbon uptake. It remains unclear, however, whether and how the beneficial effects of warming on carbon uptake will continue with climate change. Moreover, the role played by water stress in temperature control on ecosystem carbon uptake remains highly uncertain.

Relationship between wind speed and plant hydraulics at the global scale.

Wind is an important ecological factor for plants as it can increase evapotranspiration and cause dehydration. However, the impact of wind on plant hydraulics at a global scale remains unclear. Here we compiled plant key hydraulic traits, including water potential at 50% loss of hydraulic conductivity (P), xylem-specific hydraulic conductivity (K), leaf area to sapwood area ratio (A/A) and conduit diameter (D) with 2,786 species-at-site combinations across 1,922 woody species at 469 sites worldwide and analysed their correlations with wind speed.

Ultra-Tough Dynamic Supramolecular Ion-Conducting Elastomer Induced Uniform Li Transport and Stabilizes Interphase Ensures Dendrite-Free Lithium Metal Anodes.

Artificial polymer solid electrolyte interphases (SEIs) with microphase-separated structures provide promising solutions to the inhomogeneity and cracking issues of natural SEIs in lithium metal batteries (LMBs). However, achieving homogeneous ionic conductivity, excellent mechanical properties, and superior interfacial stability remains challenging due to interference from hard-phase domains in ion transport and solid-solid interface issues with lithium metal. Herein, we present a dynamic supramolecular ion-conducting poly (urethane-urea) interphase (DSIPI) that achieves these three properties through modulating the hard-phase domains and constructing a composite SEI in situ.

Growing-Season Precipitation Is a Key Driver of Plant Leaf Area to Sapwood Area Ratio at the Global Scale.

Leaf area to sapwood area ratio (A/A) influences carbon sequestration, community composition, and ecosystem functioning in terrestrial vegetation and is closely related to leaf economics and hydraulics. However, critical predictors of A/A are not well understood. We compiled an A/A data set with 1612 species-site combinations (1137 species from 285 sites worldwide) from our field experiments and published literature.

Water limitation drives species loss in grassland communities after nitrogen addition and warming.

Nutrient addition, particularly nitrogen, often increases plant aboveground biomass but causes species loss. Asymmetric competition for light is frequently assumed to explain the biomass-driven species loss. However, it remains unclear whether other factors such as water can also play a role.

Hydraulic vulnerability difference between branches and roots increases with environmental aridity.

The vulnerability of plant xylem to embolism can be described as the water potential at which xylem conductivity is lost by 50% (P). According to the traditional hypothesis of hydraulic vulnerability segmentation, the difference in vulnerability to embolism between branches and roots is positive (P > 0). It is not clear whether this occurs broadly across species or how segmentation might vary across aridity gradients.

A global meta-analysis on the effects of organic and inorganic fertilization on grasslands and croplands.

A central role for nature-based solution is to identify optimal management practices to address environmental challenges, including carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. Inorganic fertilization increases plant aboveground biomass but often causes a tradeoff with plant diversity loss. It remains unclear, however, whether organic fertilization, as a potential nature-based solution, could alter this tradeoff by increasing aboveground biomass without plant diversity loss.

Forest demography and biomass accumulation rates are associated with transient mean tree size vs. density scaling relations.

Linking individual and stand-level dynamics during forest development reveals a scaling relationship between mean tree size and tree density in forest stands, which integrates forest structure and function. However, the nature of this so-called scaling law and its variation across broad spatial scales remain unquantified, and its linkage with forest demographic processes and carbon dynamics remains elusive. In this study, we develop a theoretical framework and compile a broad-scale dataset of long-term sample forest stands ( = 1,433) from largely undisturbed forests to examine the association of temporal mean tree size vs.

Carbon cycle responses to climate change across China's terrestrial ecosystem: Sensitivity and driving process.

Investigations into the carbon cycle and how it responds to climate change at the national scale are important for a comprehensive understanding of terrestrial carbon cycle and global change issues. Contributions of carbon fluxes to the terrestrial sink and the effects on climate change are still not fully understood. In this study, we aimed to explore the relationship between ecosystem production (GPP/SIF/NDVI) and net ecosystem carbon exchange (NEE) and to investigate the sensitivity of carbon fluxes to climate change at different spatio-temporal scales.

Diminishing carryover benefits of earlier spring vegetation growth.

Spring vegetation growth can benefit summer growth by increasing foliage area and carbon sequestration potential, or impair it by consuming additional resources needed for sustaining subsequent growth. However, the prevalent driving mechanism and its temporal changes remain unknown. Using satellite observations and long-term atmospheric CO records, here we show a weakening trend of the linkage between spring and summer vegetation growth/productivity in the Northern Hemisphere during 1982-2021.

Relationships of stomatal morphology to the environment across plant communities.

The relationship between stomatal traits and environmental drivers across plant communities has important implications for ecosystem carbon and water fluxes, but it has remained unclear. Here, we measure the stomatal morphology of 4492 species-site combinations in 340 vegetation plots across China and calculate their community-weighted values for mean, variance, skewness, and kurtosis. We demonstrate a trade-off between stomatal density and size at the community level.

Non-symmetric responses of leaf onset date to natural warming and cooling in northern ecosystems.

The northern hemisphere has experienced regional cooling, especially during the global warming hiatus (1998-2012) due to ocean energy redistribution. However, the lack of studies about the natural cooling effects hampers our understanding of vegetation responses to climate change. Using 15,125 ground phenological time series at 3,620 sites since the 1950s and 31-year satellite greenness observations (1982-2012) covering the warming hiatus period, we show a stronger response of leaf onset date (LOD) to natural cooling than to warming, i.

Stomatal responses of terrestrial plants to global change.

Quantifying the stomatal responses of plants to global change factors is crucial for modeling terrestrial carbon and water cycles. Here we synthesize worldwide experimental data to show that stomatal conductance (g) decreases with elevated carbon dioxide (CO), warming, decreased precipitation, and tropospheric ozone pollution, but increases with increased precipitation and nitrogen (N) deposition. These responses vary with treatment magnitude, plant attributes (ambient g, vegetation biomes, and plant functional types), and climate.