After a brief hiatus, journal club is back and this time we’re discussing a paper by Hovenden et al from Nature in May exploring the interaction between carbon dioxide and rainfall on plant biomass.

At this point it seems that we ecologists have a reasonably good idea of what effect many environmental variables – like water, temperature, and carbon dioxide – have on certain ecosystem parameters, though always with a few caveats and exceptions thrown in to keep it interesting. However, our understanding of how these variables interact and the effects of these interactions, especially over various temporal and spatial scales, is still pretty woeful.

For example, we know that plants need water to grow, and when there isn’t enough water they stop growing – very straightforward. Plants also need CO 2 to grow, and in general higher CO 2 levels lead to higher plant biomass. This is because increased CO 2 allows for higher rates of photosynthesis and greater water use efficiency. Due to the greater water use efficiency, we also expect that the effect of elevated CO 2 (eCO 2 ) on plant growth will be greater when water scarce. Basically, with higher CO 2 ­, plants can photosynthesize more per unit available water, so will be able to grow more before the water runs out compared to plants grown at lower CO 2 levels.

As with so many things in ecology, what we predict is exactly what we see … except when we don’t. If the relationship between water availability, eCO 2 and plant biomass is so straightforward, biomass responses to eCO 2 would always be positive and we would see the strongest responses in the driest years. I bet you can see where this is going…

Hovenden et al looked at data from a nine year FACE experiment in Tasmania (TasFACE) and found that the eCO 2 effect was far from consistent across years. Some years there was no discernable eCO 2 effect on biomass, some years it was positive (like we’d expect) and one year it was actually strongly negative; and these responses were not correlated with annual rainfall or soil water availability.

Instead, Hovenden et al found that the biomass responses to eCO 2 were strongly correlated with seasonal rainfall variability. Higher rainfall in the summer resulted in a positive effect of eCO­ 2 on biomass, as we would expect. Summer rain at the site tends to come in short, sharp bursts, so the increased water use efficiency would allow the plants to maintain growth for longer between rain events. However, increased rain during the spring and autumn were correlated with a negative effect of eCO 2 on biomass. During these cooler, wetter periods plants don’t grow as much and it is likely that increased rain would leach nutrients from the soil. This was supported by a strong negative relationship between spring rain and soil nitrogen availability.

It seems probable that such a relationship between seasonal rainfall and eCO 2 effects on biomass could be seen throughout temperate and seasonally wet systems, and that this could have big implications for global carbon models. It also highlights the importance of looking beyond plants to fully understand the mechanisms that drive responses to climate change.

I would love to see similar analyses of other FACE datasets to see if these trends are replicated in other systems. It’s an important finding, but opens up lots of other interesting questions: How does vegetation type or soil type effect the relationship between seasonal rainfall and eCO 2 effects on biomass? Does seasonal temperature variability affect the relationship significantly? What about increased nitrogen pollution or fertilisation – would increased nitrogen deposition overturn the negative relationship between high spring/autumn rain and the eCO 2 effect on biomass?

As always, we’d love to hear what you think about the paper. Is it the best paper you’ve ever read or do you think it contains some fundamental flaw? Does it raise interesting questions or link well with something else you’ve read recently? Would you use similar methods or could you propose a better protocol? Let us know in the comments or on twitter with hashtag #psejclub!

Finally, don’t forget about our joint meeting with the Plant Environmental Physiology group coming up in October. All the details, including links for registration and abstract submission, are available here. It’s going to great!