An international collaboration including Oregon State University researcher Bev Law says the health of a terrestrial ecosystem can be largely determined by three variables: vegetations’ ability to uptake carbon, its efficiency in using carbon and its efficiency in using water.
An international collaboration including Oregon State University researcher Bev Law says the health of a terrestrial ecosystem can be largely determined by three variables: vegetations’ ability to uptake carbon, its efficiency in using carbon and its efficiency in using water.
Findings, published in Nature, are important because scientists and policymakers need easier, faster and less expensive ways to determine how the ecosystems relied on by humans respond to climate and environmental changes, including impacts caused by people.
“We used these complex, continuous data to develop equations that can be applied with fewer measurements to monitor forest response to climate and other factors,” Law said.
The team of researchers, led by the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, used satellite observations, mathematical models and multiple environmental data streams to determine that those three factors combine to represent more than 70% of total ecosystem function.
Read more at: Oregon State University
