Forests and ozone: productivity, carbon storage, and feedbacks.

ABSTRACT: Tropospheric ozone is a serious air-pollutant, with large impacts on plant function. This study demonstrates that tropospheric ozone, although it damages plant metabolism, does not necessarily reduce ecosystem processes such as productivity or carbon sequestration because of diversity change and compensatory processes at the community scale ameliorate negative impacts at the individual level. This study assesses the impact of ozone on forest composition and ecosystem dynamics with an individual-based gap model that includes basic physiology as well as species-specific metabolic properties. Elevated tropospheric ozone leads to no reduction of forest productivity and carbon stock and to increased isoprene emissions, which result from enhanced dominance by isoprene-emitting species (which tol

SUBMITTER: Wang B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4762018 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature