Imperial College London
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Professor Iain Colin Prentice

Faculty of Natural Sciences, Department of Life Sciences (Silwood Park)

Chair in Biosphere and Climate Impacts
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 2482c.prentice

 
 
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Location

 

2.3Centre for Population BiologySilwood Park

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Stocker:2018:10.1111/nph.15123,
author = {Stocker, BD and Zscheischler, J and Keenan, TF and Prentice, IC and Peñuelas, J and Seneviratne, SI},
doi = {10.1111/nph.15123},
journal = {New Phytologist},
pages = {1430--1449},
title = {Quantifying soil moisture impacts on light use efficiency across biomes.},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph.15123},
volume = {218},
year = {2018}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - Terrestrial primary productivity and carbon cycle impacts of droughts are commonly quantified using vapour pressure deficit (VPD) data and remotely sensed greenness, without accounting for soil moisture. However, soil moisture limitation is known to strongly affect plant physiology. Here, we investigate light use efficiency, the ratio of gross primary productivity (GPP) to absorbed light. We derive its fractional reduction due to soil moisture (fLUE), separated from VPD and greenness changes, using artificial neural networks trained on eddy covariance data, multiple soil moisture datasets and remotely sensed greenness. This reveals substantial impacts of soil moisture alone that reduce GPP by up to 40% at sites located in sub-humid, semi-arid or arid regions. For sites in relatively moist climates, we find, paradoxically, a muted fLUE response to drying soil, but reduced fLUE under wet conditions. fLUE identifies substantial drought impacts that are not captured when relying solely on VPD and greenness changes and, when seasonally recurring, are missed by traditional, anomaly-based drought indices. Counter to common assumptions, fLUE reductions are largest in drought-deciduous vegetation, including grasslands. Our results highlight the necessity to account for soil moisture limitation in terrestrial primary productivity data products, especially for drought-related assessments.
AU  - Stocker,BD
AU  - Zscheischler,J
AU  - Keenan,TF
AU  - Prentice,IC
AU  - Peñuelas,J
AU  - Seneviratne,SI
DO  - 10.1111/nph.15123
EP  - 1449
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 0028-646X
SP  - 1430
TI  - Quantifying soil moisture impacts on light use efficiency across biomes.
T2  - New Phytologist
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/nph.15123
UR  - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29604221
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/59029
VL  - 218
ER  -
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