C4 grasses prosper as carbon dioxide eliminates desiccation in warmed semi-arid grassland

Jack A. Morgan (), Daniel R. LeCain, Elise Pendall, Dana M. Blumenthal, Bruce A. Kimball, Yolima Carrillo, David G. Williams, Jana Heisler-White, Feike A. Dijkstra and Mark West
Additional contact information
Jack A. Morgan: USDA-ARS, Rangeland Resources Research Unit and Northern Plains Area
Daniel R. LeCain: USDA-ARS, Rangeland Resources Research Unit and Northern Plains Area
Elise Pendall: University of Wyoming
Dana M. Blumenthal: USDA-ARS, Rangeland Resources Research Unit and Northern Plains Area
Bruce A. Kimball: US Arid-Land Agricultural Research Center, USDA, Agricultural Research Service, Maricopa, Arizona 85238, USA
Yolima Carrillo: University of Wyoming
David G. Williams: Renewable Resources, and Program in Ecology, University of Wyoming
Jana Heisler-White: Renewable Resources, and Program in Ecology, University of Wyoming
Feike A. Dijkstra: USDA-ARS, Rangeland Resources Research Unit and Northern Plains Area
Mark West: USDA-ARS, Rangeland Resources Research Unit and Northern Plains Area

Nature, 2011, vol. 476, issue 7359, 202-205

Abstract: Grassland responses to carbon dioxide Elevated carbon dioxide and elevated temperature, the cause and consequence of climate change, are predicted to have opposing effects on plant productivity, with temperature increasing desiccation but CO2 increasing the efficiency of water use. The relative strengths of the two effects are, however, hard to predict. This experimental warming and elevated CO2 study shows that in semi-arid grassland, the CO2 effect can completely counter the warming effect. These findings have particular relevance to semi-arid and seasonally dry regions, which are expected to become even drier under climate change, and suggest that it is precisely these regions where elevated CO2 will do most to ameliorate the desiccating effects of climate change.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10274 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:476:y:2011:i:7359:d:10.1038_nature10274

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

DOI: 10.1038/nature10274

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 ().