Variation Among Biomes in Temporal Dynamics of Aboveground Primary Production
Abstract
Interannual variability in aboveground net primary production (ANPP) was assessed with long-term (mean = 12 years) data from 11 Long Term Ecological Research sites across North America. The greatest interannual variability in ANPP occurred in grasslands and old fields, with forests the least variable. At a continental scale, ANPP was strongly correlated with annual precipitation. However, interannual variability in ANPP was not related to variability in precipitation. Instead, maximum variability in ANPP occurred in biomes where high potential growth rates of herbaceous vegetation were combined with moderate variability in precipitation. In the most dynamic biomes, ANPP responded more strongly to wet than to dry years. Recognition of the fourfold range in ANPP dynamics across biomes and of the factors that constrain this variability is critical for detecting the biotic impacts of global change phenomena.
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We thank the principal investigators, information managers, and scientists responsible for measuring ANPP at the LTER sites and J. Aber, W. Bowman, D. Schimel, G. Shaver, R. Ruess, T. Fahey, and W. Lauenroth for providing comments on earlier versions of the manuscript. Research was supported and data were provided by the NSF Long-Term Ecological Research Program, the VEMAP data group and sponsors (S. Aulenbach, NASA, the Electric Power Research Institute, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Forest Service), and Kansas State University. This paper is dedicated to the memory of Dr. James T. Callahan, whose foresight and support of the LTER program for over 20 years enabled these data to be collected.
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Science
Volume 291 | Issue 5503
19 January 2001
19 January 2001
Submission history
Received: 10 July 2000
Accepted: 7 December 2000
Published in print: 19 January 2001
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Cited by
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- Rainfall Variability, Carbon Cycling, and Plant Species Diversity in a Mesic Grassland, Science, 298, 5601, (2202-2205), (2002)./doi/10.1126/science.1076347
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