Gross primary production responses to warming, elevated CO2 , and irrigation: quantifying the drivers of ecosystem physiology in a semiarid grassland

We evaluated 6 years (2007–2012) of flux-derived GPP data from the Prairie Heating and CO2 Enrichment (PHACE) experiment, situated in a grassland in Wyoming, USA. GPP was calculated as the difference between net ecosystem exchange and ecosystem respiration, described by Ryan et al. 2015 (doi: 10.1111/gcb.12910).This package also includes the NEE and Reco data used for calucalating GPP. 

The GPP data were used to calibrate a light response model whose basic formulation has been successfully used in a variety of ecosystems. The model was extended by modeling maximum photosynthetic rate (Amax) and light-use efficiency (Q) as functions of soil water, air temperature, vapor pressure deficit, vegetation greenness, and nitrogen at current and antecedent (past) timescales. The model fits the observed GPP well (R2 = 0.79), which was confirmed by other model performance checks that compared different variants of the model (e.g. with and without antecedent effects). Stimulation of cumulative 6-year GPP by warming (29%, P = 0.02) and eCO2 (26%, P = 0.07) was primarily driven by enhanced C uptake during spring (129%, P = 0.001) and fall (124%, P = 0.001), respectively, which was consistent across years. Antecedent air temperature (Tairant) and vapor pressure deficit (VPDant) effects on Amax (over the past 3–4 days and 1–3 days, respectively) were the most significant predictors of temporal variability in GPP among most treatments. The importance of VPDant suggests that atmospheric drought is important for predicting GPP under current and future climate; we highlight the need for experimental studies to identify the mechanisms underlying such antecedent effects. Finally, posterior estimates of cumulative GPP under control and eCO2 treatments were tested as a benchmark against 12 terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs). The narrow uncertainties of these data-driven GPP estimates suggest that they could be useful semi-independent data streams for validating TBMs.

See Read Me files for more details.

Funding provided by: U.S. Department of Agriculture
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000199
Award Number: 2008-35107-18655

Funding provided by: U.S. Department of Energy
Crossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/100000015
Award Number: DE-SC0006973

Funding provided by: Western Regional Center of the National Institute for Climatic Change Research, and by the National Science Foundation
Crossref Funder Registry ID:
Award Number: DEB#1021559