2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference
March 13 - 15, 2022
5/23/2019 | 9:15 AM - 9:30 AM | TEMPERATURE VARIANCE LEADS TO UNDERESTIMATION OF THE TEMPERATURE SENSITIVITY OF PLANT LITTER DECOMPOSITION | 254 B
TEMPERATURE VARIANCE LEADS TO UNDERESTIMATION OF THE TEMPERATURE SENSITIVITY OF PLANT LITTER DECOMPOSITION
Temperature sensitivity of plant litter decomposition is critical to estimate, as temperature increases will accelerate losses of plant carbon to CO2. A common approach to assess temperature x decomposition relationships uses spatial gradients in temperature to estimate activation energies (Ea). These estimates relate decomposition rates to average temperatures across sites, ignoring within-site temperature variance. We hypothesized that temperature variance can increase decomposition and affect predictions of temperature sensitivity. We tested this by simulating plant litter decomposition in terrestrial and aquatic environments with global and U.S. temperature datasets and explored patterns in temperature means and variance. We found that variance is typically higher at cooler mean temperatures, particularly in terrestrial datasets. Estimates of temperature sensitivity (apparent Ea) made from data simulated with real time series of temperature and known temperature sensitivity (inherent Ea) showed that variance in temperature could bias estimates of Ea by up to 0.3 eV. Our results suggest that commonly used methods may underestimate the temperature dependence of litter decomposition, particularly in terrestrial environments. Thus, we encourage assessment of temperature mean and variance relationships when estimating activation energies to improve predictions of future carbon loss.
- Modeling
- Organic Matter
- Temperature
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Presenters/Authors
Nathan Tomczyk
(), University of Georgia, nathan.tomczyk@gmail.com;
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Amy Rosemond
(), University of Georgia, rosemond@uga.edu;
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Carolyn Cummins
(), The University of Georgia, carolynsc1225@gmail.com;
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Phillip Bumpers
(), Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, bumpersp@gmail.com;
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Jonathan Benstead
(), University of Alabama, jbenstead@ua.ed;
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Seth Wenger
(), Odum School of Ecology, University of Georgia, swenger@uga.edu;
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