Scaling metabolism from organisms to ecosystems

Brian J. Enquist (), Evan P. Economo, Travis E. Huxman, Andrew P. Allen, Danielle D. Ignace and James F. Gillooly
Additional contact information
Brian J. Enquist: University of Arizona
Evan P. Economo: University of Arizona
Travis E. Huxman: University of Arizona
Andrew P. Allen: University of New Mexico
Danielle D. Ignace: University of Arizona
James F. Gillooly: University of New Mexico

Nature, 2003, vol. 423, issue 6940, 639-642

Abstract: Abstract Understanding energy and material fluxes through ecosystems is central to many questions in global change biology and ecology1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11. Ecosystem respiration is a critical component of the carbon cycle1,5,6,7 and might be important in regulating biosphere response to global climate change1,2,3. Here we derive a general model of ecosystem respiration based on the kinetics of metabolic reactions11,12,13 and the scaling of resource use by individual organisms14,15. The model predicts that fluxes of CO2 and energy are invariant of ecosystem biomass, but are strongly influenced by temperature, variation in cellular metabolism and rates of supply of limiting resources (water and/or nutrients). Variation in ecosystem respiration within sites, as calculated from a network of CO2 flux towers5,7, provides robust support for the model's predictions. However, data indicate that variation in annual flux between sites is not strongly dependent on average site temperature or latitude. This presents an interesting paradox with regard to the expected temperature dependence. Nevertheless, our model provides a basis for quantitatively understanding energy and material flux between the atmosphere and biosphere.

Date: 2003
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature01671 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:nature:v:423:y:2003:i:6940:d:10.1038_nature01671

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

DOI: 10.1038/nature01671

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

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