The breathing Gaia

Trying to understand the intricate ways in which the ecosystem responds to variations of tempearature (or carbon) is a complex job, but studies are making some progress. Two recent studies bear that out.

The first study was conducted by a team at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena, Germany, along with colleagues from 10 other countries around the world, and looked at Earth’s Gross Primary Production, or GPP, which refers to the total amount of carbon dioxide that plants on the surface of the planet breathe in through photosynthesis each year.

The researchers found that Earth’s tropical forests are responsible for 34% of the carbon dioxide inhaled from the atmosphere, while the savannas account for 26%. Both figures look promising, but when you consider that savannas occupy twice as much surface area as the tropical forests do, the numbers start to look a little different.

The second study also from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, as well as an international team of researchers show that the sensitivity of ecosystem respiration to temperature variations seems to be independent from external factors and constant across ecosystems. In other words, they found a general relationship between variation in temperature and ecosystem respiration.