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Wood formation determines major long-term carbon (C) accumulation in trees and therefore provides a crucial ecosystem service in mitigating climate change. Nevertheless, we lack understanding of how species with contrasting wood anatomical types differ with respect to phenology and environmental controls on wood formation. In this study, we investigated the seasonality and rates of radial growth a

Permafrost degradation poses serious threats to both natural and human systems through its influence on ecological–hydrological processes, infrastructure stability, and the climate system. The Arctic and the Third Pole (Tibetan Plateau, TP hereafter) are the two northern regions on Earth with the most extensive permafrost areas. However, there is a lack of systematic comparisons of permafrost char

Sedimentary charcoal records are widely used to reconstruct regional changes in fire regimes through time in the geological past. Existing global compilations are not geographically comprehensive and do not provide consistent metadata for all sites. Furthermore, the age models provided for these records are not harmonised and many are based on older calibrations of the radiocarbon ages. These issu

Insect herbivores play important roles in shaping many ecosystem processes, but how climate change will alter the effects of insect herbivory are poorly understood. To address this knowledge gap, we quantified for the first time how insect frass and cadavers affected leaf litter decomposition rates and nutrient release along a highly constrained 4.3°C mean annual temperature (MAT) gradient in a Ha

Insect herbivory is one of the most important ecological processes affecting plant–soil feedbacks and overall forest ecosystem health. In this study, we assess how elevated carbon dioxide (eCO2) impacts (i) leaf level insect herbivory and (ii) the stand-level herbivore-mediated transfer of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) from the canopy to the ground in a natural mature oak temperate forest community

Soil is the largest terrestrial reservoir of organic carbon and is central for climate change mitigation and carbon-climate feedbacks. Chemical and physical associations of soil carbon with minerals play a critical role in carbon storage, but the amount and global capacity for storage in this form remain unquantified. Here, we produce spatially-resolved global estimates of mineral-associated organ

The prediction of species geographic redistribution under climate change (i.e. range shifts) has been addressed by both experimental and modelling approaches and can be used to inform efficient policy measures on the functioning and services of future ecosystems. Dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) are considered state-of-the art tools to understand and quantify the spatio-temporal dynamics o

Arctic and subarctic areas have experienced a rapid warming and substantial increases in precipitation in recent decades. The frequency and intensity of some extreme events, such as fires, winter warming events, extreme rainfall, and droughts, has also increased. These climatic changes and other anthropogenic factors have caused profound changes in arctic and subarctic ecosystems with important im

Whether sources or sinks control wood growth remains debated with a paucity of evidence from mature trees in natural settings. Here, we altered carbon supply rate in stems of mature red maples (Acer rubrum) within the growing season by restricting phloem transport using stem chilling; thereby increasing carbon supply above and decreasing carbon supply below the restrictions, respectively. Chilling

Earth's forests harbor extensive biodiversity and are currently a major carbon sink. Forest conservation and restoration can help mitigate climate change; however, climate change could fundamentally imperil forests in many regions and undermine their ability to provide such mitigation. The extent of climate risks facing forests has not been synthesized globally nor have different approaches to qua

Recent observations of elevated tree mortality following climate extremes, like heat and drought, raise concerns about climate change risks to global forest health. We currently lack both sufficient data and understanding to identify whether these observations represent a global trend toward increasing tree mortality. Here, we document events of sudden and unexpected elevated tree mortality follow

We present a constructive approach to bounded l2-gain adaptive control with noisy measurements for linear time-invariant scalar systems with uncertain parameters belonging to a finite set. The gain bound refers to the closed-loop system, including the learning procedure. The approach is based on forward dynamic programming to construct a finite-dimensional information state consisting of H-infinit

Tropical mountain cloud forests (TMCF) harbour a high bryophyte (mosses and liverworts) biomass and diversity. Furthermore, the high air humidity makes these forests well suited for bryophyte-associated nitrogen (N2) fixation by cyanobacteria, providing a potentially important source of N input to the ecosystem. However, few studies have assessed bryophyte-associated N input in these ecosystems, a

The Black Death (1347–1352 ce) is the most renowned pandemic in human history, believed by many to have killed half of Europe’s population. However, despite advances in ancient DNA research that conclusively identified the pandemic’s causative agent (bacterium Yersinia pestis), our knowledge of the Black Death remains limited, based primarily on qualitative remarks in medieval written sources avai

Code review is a common practice in software development andnumerous studies have described different aspects of the process;its characteristics, the expectations on that process, issues aroundreviewer allocation, and more. However, one aspect that has notbeen studied to a large extent is the experience of the developersin the code review process. This is unfortunate given the signifi-cant amount

This study focuses on the trends and the causes of variation in actual evapotranspiration (AET) around the warming hiatus over China by a comprehensive analysis applying various temporal–spatial methods. It is observed that the annual AET showed a different trend around 2000 for China as a whole. By employing segmented regression analysis for detecting warming hiatus points, high temporal inconsis

Push-pull technology (PPT) is a strategy for controlling agricultural pests, improving soil fertility, diversifying farm output, and reducing gender and age disparities. The benefits of PPT have been demonstrated in East Africa, but efforts to upscale its adoption can face many challenges. Agroecosystems comprise social-ecological networks, with interactions that transcend spatial and temporal sca

Increased wealth and per capita energy use have transformed lives and shaped societies, but energy poverty remains a global challenge. Previous research has shown positive relationships among metrics of health and happiness and economic indices such as income and gross domestic product and between energy use and human development. To our knowledge, however, no comprehensive assessment has examined

Our study aims to increase the understanding about the impacts of potential drivers of pollen richness by using a pollen-vegetation modelling approach. We used the Sutton-Prentice dispersal model implemented in the HUMPOL software suite to explore the effects of factors commonly associated with pollen richness: vegetation diversity (plant richness and evenness), land-cover characteristics (patch r