Optimal stomatal behaviour around the world

View/ Open
Issue date
2015Author
Lin, Yan-Shih
Medlyn, Belinda E.
Duursma, Remko A.
Prentice, I. Colin
Wang, Han
Baig, Sofia
Eamus, Derek
Mitchell, Patrick
Ellsworth, David S.
Op de Beeck, Maarten
Wallin, Göran
Uddling, Johan
Tarvainen, Lasse
Linderson, Maj-Lena
Cernusak, Lucas A.
Nippert, Jesse B.
Ocheltree, Troy W.
Tissue, David T.
Martin-StPaul, Nicolas K.
Rogers, Alistair
Warren, Jeff M.
De Angelis, Paolo
Hikosaka, Kouki
Han, Qingmin
Onoda, Yusuke
Gimeno, Teresa E.
Barton, Craig V. M.
Bennie, Jonathan
Bonal, Damien
Bosc, Alexandre
Löw, Markus
Macinins-Ng, Cate
Rey, Ana
Rowland, Lucy
Setterfield, Samantha A.
Tausz-Posch, Sabine
Zaragoza-Castells, Joana
Broadmeadow, Mark S. J.
Drake, John E.
Freeman, Michael
Ghannoum, Oula
Hutley, Lindsay B.
Kelly, Jeff W.
Kikuzawa, Kihachiro
Kolari, Pasi
Koyama, Kohei
Limousin, Jean-Marc
Meir, Patrick
Lola da Costa, Antonio C.
Mikkelsen, Teis N.
Salinas, Norma
Sun, Wei
Wingate, Lisa
Suggested citation
Lin, Yan-Shih;
Medlyn, Belinda E.;
Duursma, Remko A.;
Prentice, I. Colin;
Wang, Han;
Baig, Sofia;
...
Wingate, Lisa.
(2015)
.
Optimal stomatal behaviour around the world.
Nature Climate Change, vol. 5, p. 459-464.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2550.
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
Stomatal conductance (gs) is a key land-surface attribute as it links transpiration, the dominant component of global land evapotranspiration, and photosynthesis, the driving force of the global carbon cycle. Despite the pivotal role of gs in predictions of global water and carbon cycle changes, a global-scale database and an associated globally applicable model of gs that allow predictions of stomatal behaviour are lacking. Here, we present a database of globally distributed gs obtained in the field for a wide range of plant functional types (PFTs) and biomes. We find that stomatal behaviour differs among PFTs according to their marginal carbon cost of water use, as predicted by the theory underpinning the optimal stomatal model1 and the leaf and wood economics spectrum2, 3. We also demonstrate a global relationship with climate. These findings provide a robust theoretical framework for understanding and predicting the behaviour of gs across biomes and across PFTs that can be applied to regional, continental and global-scale modelling of ecosystem productivity, energy balance and ecohydrological processes in a future changing climate.