Published October 9, 2012 | Version v1
Journal article Open

A plant’s perspective of extremes: Terrestrial plant responses to changing climatic variability

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Description

We review here observational, experimental and model results dedicated to how plants respond to extreme climatic conditions induced by changing climatic variability. Distinguishing between impacts of changing mean climatic conditions and changing climatic variability on terrestrial ecosystems is generally underrated in current studies. The goals of our review are thus (1) to identify plant processes that are vulnerable to changes in the variability of climatic variables rather than to changes in their mean, and (2) to depict/evaluate available tools to quantify responses of plants to changing climatic variability. We find that phenology is largely affected by changing mean climate but also that impacts of climatic variability are much less studied but potentially damaging. We note that plant water relations seem to be very vulnerable to extremes driven by changes in temperature and precipitation and that changing heatwaves and flooding have stronger impacts on physiological processes than changing mean climate. Moreover, interacting phenological and physiological processes are likely to add further complexity to plant responses to changing climatic variability. Phenological and physiological processes and their interactions culminate in even more sophisticated responses to changing mean climate and climatic variability at the species and community level. Generally, observational studies are well suited to study plant responses to changing mean climate, but less suitable to gain a mechanistic understanding of plant responses to climatic variability. Experiments seem best suited to simulate extreme events and temporal resolution and model structure are crucial in models to capture plant responses to changing climatic variability. We highlight that a combination of experimental, observational and /or modeling studies have the potential to overcome important caveats of the respective individual approaches.

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Funding

European Commission
MOTIVE - Models for Adaptive Forest Management 226544
European Commission
ACQWA - Assessment of Climatic change and impacts on the Quantity and quality of Water 212250
European Commission
CARBO-EXTREME - The terrestrial Carbon cycle under Climate Variability and Extremes – a Pan-European synthesis 226701