Differentiating moss from higher plants is critical in studying the carbon cycle of the boreal biome

Wenping Yuan (), Shuguang Liu (), Wenjie Dong (), Shunlin Liang, Shuqing Zhao, Jingming Chen, Wenfang Xu, Xianglan Li, Alan Barr, T. Andrew Black, Wende Yan, Mike L. Goulden, Liisa Kulmala, Anders Lindroth, Hank A. Margolis, Yojiro Matsuura, Eddy Moors, Michiel van der Molen, Takeshi Ohta, Kim Pilegaard, Andrej Varlagin and Timo Vesala
Additional contact information
Wenping Yuan: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University
Shuguang Liu: U.S. Geological Survey, Earth Resources Observation and Science Center
Wenjie Dong: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University
Shunlin Liang: State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Jointly Sponsored by Beijing Normal University and Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Chinese Academy of Sciences, College of Global Change and Earth System Science
Shuqing Zhao: College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University
Jingming Chen: University of Toronto
Wenfang Xu: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University
Xianglan Li: State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Jointly Sponsored by Beijing Normal University and Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, Chinese Academy of Sciences, College of Global Change and Earth System Science
Alan Barr: Environment Canada
T. Andrew Black: University of British Columbia
Wende Yan: State Engineering Laboratory of Southern Forestry Applied Ecology and Technology, Central South University of Forestry and Technology
Mike L. Goulden: University of California
Liisa Kulmala: Department of Forest Sciences
Anders Lindroth: Lund University
Hank A. Margolis: Centre d'Étude de la Forêt, Faculté de foresterie, de géographie et de géomatique, Université Laval
Yojiro Matsuura: International Forest Informatics Laboratory, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute
Eddy Moors: Wageningen UR, Alterra, Earth System Science and Climate Change Group
Michiel van der Molen: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Takeshi Ohta: Graduate School of Bioagricultural Sciences, Nagoya University, Furo-cho
Kim Pilegaard: Technical University of Denmark
Andrej Varlagin: Sukachev Laboratory of Biocenology, Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS
Timo Vesala: P.O. Box 48, FI-00014

Nature Communications, 2014, vol. 5, issue 1, 1-8

Abstract: Abstract The satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), which is used for estimating gross primary production (GPP), often includes contributions from both mosses and vascular plants in boreal ecosystems. For the same NDVI, moss can generate only about one-third of the GPP that vascular plants can because of its much lower photosynthetic capacity. Here, based on eddy covariance measurements, we show that the difference in photosynthetic capacity between these two plant functional types has never been explicitly included when estimating regional GPP in the boreal region, resulting in a substantial overestimation. The magnitude of this overestimation could have important implications regarding a change from a current carbon sink to a carbon source in the boreal region. Moss abundance, associated with ecosystem disturbances, needs to be mapped and incorporated into GPP estimates in order to adequately assess the role of the boreal region in the global carbon cycle.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms5270 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:5:y:2014:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms5270

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms5270

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().